runoff risk exists in seven regions

The Civil Society Development Foundation (FORGO) has prepared a report on the specifics of regional elections in 2023, which Kommersant has read. According to experts, the risk of second rounds in the course of gubernatorial campaigns exists not only in the traditionally protesting Yakutia and Khakassia, but also in the Ivanovo and Oryol regions, Altai, Primorsky and even Krasnoyarsk territories.

Most of the 2023 gubernatorial campaigns will be held according to the “referendum” scenario, that is, with formal competition from opposition candidates. According to the authors of the report, under such conditions, the current heads of 11 subjects are guaranteed to be re-elected – Moscow, Amur, Voronezh, Kemerovo, Magadan, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Pskov, Samara and Tyumen regions.

Recall that on September 10, direct elections of governors will be held in 21 regions. 17 acting leaders will run for a new term, of which 15 represent United Russia and two are the heads of Khakassia and the Oryol region – the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Four more will go to the polls from the position of temporary acting – these are the heads of Chukotka, the Smolensk and Omsk regions, as well as the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Finally, in five regions – the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions – the heads will be elected by the parliament.

ForGO experts note that in Yakutia, Altai and Primorsky Territories, Ivanovo and Oryol regions, there are “problems that are hypothetically fraught with complications up to threats of second rounds.”

So, the former mayor of Yakutsk, Aisen Nikolaev, who was elected to the post of Il Darkhan (head of the republic) five years ago with a confident result of 71.4% of the vote, made a number of misfires during his reign: the defeat of his successor in the mayoral elections in 2019 (supported by him and. Mayor Pyotr Efremov lost the election to Sardana Avksentieva), one of the worst results when voting on amendments to the Constitution in 2020 (58.34% voted for them, and the national average – 78.45%) and the success of the Communist Party in the elections to the State Duma in 2021 (overtook United Russia, gaining 35.15% in the region). “Electoral failures” are also haunting the governor of the Altai Territory, Viktor Tomenko, who was elected in 2018 with the worst result (53.6%). “The Communist Party of the Russian Federation regained its previously lost positions and in 2021 achieved significant success both in the Duma elections (30.54%, and the national average is 18.93%), and in the elections to the Legislative Assembly, depriving the United Russia of its usual majority,”— experts continue.

According to the FORGO, if the Communists put up “relatively strong” candidates against Messrs. Nikolaev and Tomenko, then in Yakutia and Altai “there may be a threat of second rounds.” State Duma deputies Pyotr Ammosov and Maria Prusakova, who have “high fame and popularity,” the authors of the report believe, can act as dangerous opponents.

In the other three regions, the situation for the current governors is not so dangerous, but also difficult.

Five years ago, Oleg Kozhemyako was elected head of Primorye with not the most confident result (61.9%), while the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in 2021 “showed itself well” in the Duma elections (gained 28.24%). The governor of the Oryol region from the Communist Party Andrey Klychkov, on the contrary, was elected with the best result of that year (83.6%), but he could not build relations with local United Russia members and avoid elite conflicts, and members of his team repeatedly fell into corruption scandals. Finally, Ivanovo Governor Stanislav Voskresensky is accused by experts of a “lack of achievements.” However, for now, Kozhemyako, Klychkov and Voskresensky should only be afraid that their victories “will not be convincing enough,” the authors of the report summarize.

Standing apart among other gubernatorial campaigns this year are the elections of the head of Khakassia, which are “doomed to be competitive.” The fact is that communist Valentin Konovalov, who in 2018 was an opposition candidate and could freely criticize the government, will now represent it himself, and his positions are vulnerable to criticism. And he will be opposed by a State Duma deputy from United Russia, a veteran of the special operation and a graduate of the “school of governors” (a special training program for the management personnel reserve based on the Higher School of Public Administration at the RANEPA) Sergei Sokol. It is possible that a second round may be needed for the winner, experts conclude.

As for the acting governors, they will have to deal with the “ambiguous legacy of their predecessors” – the unfulfilled hopes of voters, the partial loss of control over the territories, the consequences of electoral failures, and so on. According to the author of the report, the situation of Mikhail Kotyukov in the Krasnoyarsk Territory is the most problematic: he is forced to keep intact the regional internal political bloc, whose leadership in 2018 “brought his predecessor Alexander Uss to a humiliating result of 60.2% and allowed the Liberal Democratic Party to win the municipal elections in Krasnoyarsk. “The nomination of a strong candidate by the Liberal Democrats is quite capable of creating a threat of a second round,” experts believe. As such an opponent to Mr. Kotyukov, they name the leader of the LDPR faction in the Legislative Assembly of the region, Alexander Gliskov, who is “known as an experienced lawyer and lobbyist.”

Andrew Ashes