Stress test – Newspaper Kommersant No. 16 (7461) dated 01/30/2023

Only one in three of the governors, whose term of office expires in 2023, can feel absolutely confident in their “political stability,” follows from the next release of the State Council 2.0 rating prepared by Minchenko Consulting. The 2023 regional elections will be a rehearsal for the 2024 presidential campaign, and it is important for the federal center that they do without excesses, the authors of the study recall.

The leaders of 21 regions are going to the polls in 2023 (not counting the heads of the new territories).

Three of them – the head of Chukotka Roman Kopin, the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexander Uss and the head of Khakassia Valentin Konovalov – according to experts, are in the “red zone”, which means a high probability of resignation or defeat, follows from the political stability rating of governors “State Council 2.0”.

Another 11 received a “yellow card” from the compilers of the rating – that is, for one reason or another, they were in a high-risk group.

For Mr. Konovalov, re-election looks like a mirage, the authors of the rating are sure: elected against the will of the Kremlin, he has been under pressure from federal and local elites since the very beginning of his term as governor, and has also made a considerable number of his own miscalculations. It is possible that one of the most competitive election campaigns will take place in Khakassia: this will happen if the incumbent governor still goes to the polls, and the popular State Duma deputy Sergei Sokol (United Russia), now participating in the SVO, opposes him. The situation of Alexander Uss is complicated by the combination of campaigns for the election of the governor and the city council of a more oppositional administrative center. In addition, the high attractiveness of the region provokes the struggle of the elites for political influence. As for Roman Kopin, he is now the second “long-liver” of the governor’s corps after Ramzan Kadyrov, having held his position since 2008. Given the trend towards personnel renewal, the Kremlin may consider replacing the head, who, judging by the low information activity, is unlikely to be very enthusiastic about continuing the protracted business trip.

It should be taken into account, the authors of the rating remind, that this year’s gubernatorial elections will be held mainly in electorally difficult regions.

Eleven of the regions facing elections are in Siberia and the Far East, where protest sentiment is traditionally above average.

From the point of view of management, the campaign of the head of Yakutia, Aisen Nikolaev, will be labor-intensive: the governor, the regional parliament and the city council of Yakutsk will be elected simultaneously in the region. It will not be easy for Novosibirsk Governor Andrey Travnikov, who is in conflict with both local groups of influence and federal actors, and in the meantime, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation almost won the victory in the elections to the State Duma in Novosibirsk. The Governor of the Altai Territory, Viktor Tomenko, may also face difficulties. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation has high support in the region, and the federal center has complaints about the socio-economic indicators of the Altai Territory, the authors of the report say. Of particular interest, according to experts, is Primorye, a region where in 2018 the Kremlin was unable to elect a governor the first time. Oleg Kozhemyako has accumulated a significant baggage of conflicts with local elites, because of which the campaign may bring surprises, the authors of the rating warn.

In their opinion, the fate of the communist governor Andrey Klychkov (Oryol region) is not obvious either. However, Oryol region is traditionally considered the “patrimony” of the Communist Party, so it can keep its governor. The retention of the post by another representative of the systemic parliamentary opposition, the governor of the Omsk region Alexander Burkov (SRZP), will become an indicator of the stability of the party itself, the authors of the rating believe.

Among the heads of regions who can feel quite confident are the Samara governor Dmitry Azarov, the heads of the Nizhny Novgorod region Gleb Nikitin and the Pskov region Mikhail Vedernikov. The leaders of the two leading regions, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov, stand apart, the authors of the rating note. Campaigns in the Capital Region will set the tone for all of the season’s regional elections, according to the rankings.

In general, experts warn, EDG-2023 may be more difficult than the 2022 campaign.

According to a number of estimates, the current year may see the peak of the economic downturn. Meanwhile, more campaigns will take place in large regions with significant electoral and economic potential. At the same time, experts warn that the regional elections of 2023 will de facto become a rehearsal for the presidential campaign of 2024 – further scenarios for the political management of the election of the head of state will depend on how successfully the campaigns are managed locally. It will be important for the federal center to prevent any excesses before the presidential elections in order to avoid doubts about the stability of the system.

High competition in the elections this year should not be expected, says Alexander Nemtsev, associate professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. The dramaturgy will be based on the tasks of the presidential campaign, the elections will be strictly administratively structured, and there will be no game of pluralism – except perhaps in Khakassia, where special conditions have developed for this. Everyone who will drag the image of the authorities down will be disposed of – the most toxic politicians, according to the expert, will be dismissed even before the start of the campaign, the gap between the EDG and the 2024 elections is too small. However, falling into the “red zone” of the rating is not yet a sentence for a politician, says political scientist Vitaly Ivanov: they have been talking about the fatigue of the same Roman Kopin for ten years already. The results of the gubernatorial elections cannot be mechanically projected onto the presidential campaign, Mr. Ivanov believes: one must also take into account the results of elections at various levels over several years. It is clear that the “top” item on the agenda of any campaign will be the SVO, but the questions raised at the same time will depend on the level of the elections, adds Vitaly Ivanov.

Anastasia Kornya