The communists are eyeing the city hall – Newspaper Kommersant No. 8 (7453) of 01/18/2023

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation has begun preparations for the upcoming September mayoral elections in Moscow and is already discussing possible candidates. Among them are both members of the capital’s city committee and representatives of the federal leadership of the party. Kommersant’s sources call State Duma deputies Denis Parfyonov and Vadim Kumin, as well as Yury Afonin, first deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the most likely contenders. For the latter, according to Kommersant’s interlocutors, the election of the mayor of Moscow may become a preparatory stage before participating in the 2024 presidential campaign. The expert warns that if Mr. Afonin fails to come out bright, it could reduce his chances of becoming the successor to Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov.

The names of possible candidates from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for mayor of Moscow have already been heard in a number of media. For example, RIA Novosti, citing its sources in the party, recently reported that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is discussing more than a dozen candidates. Among them are the head of the Moscow city committee and the leader of the Communist Party faction in the Moscow City Duma Nikolai Zubrilin, State Duma deputies Vadim Kumin and Denis Parfyonov, as well as the ex-leader of the capital’s communists Valery Rashkin, who was deprived of his Duma mandate last year. And the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Sergei Obukhov, told the same agency that among the potential candidates, the communists are also considering the first deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, State Duma deputy Yuri Afonin.

Nikolai Zubrilin confirmed to Kommersant on Tuesday that all of the listed party members are being discussed as possible participants in the 2023 mayoral elections. According to him, in addition to the above-mentioned politicians, this list includes Moscow City Duma deputies Leonid Zyuganov and Pavel Tarasov, as well as the governor of the Oryol region Andrei Klychkov.

However, two Kommersant sources close to the leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation claim that the real pool of candidates is much narrower: first of all, Vadim Kumin, Denis Parfenov and Yuri Afonin. At the same time, Mr. Kumin, according to one of Kommersant’s interlocutors, is not eager to participate in the September campaign. Less probable, but possible sources call the nomination of Nikolai Zubrilin. The main fork, they say, is whether the decision will be made to run the Moscow campaign separately or to “stitch” it with the 2024 presidential election. In the second case, the nomination of Yuri Afonin is very likely, one of Kommersant’s interlocutors explains: then the election of the mayor of Moscow may become a preparatory stage for Mr. Afonin before participating in the presidential campaign. Yuri Afonin himself, in a conversation with Kommersant, did not confirm or deny his possible participation in the election of the mayor of Moscow, noting only that the party is considering both Moscow politicians and figures from the federal leadership of the Communist Party for this role.

Of the politicians named by the communists, only Vadim Kumin previously participated in the Moscow mayoral elections, who in 2018 took second place with 11.44% of the vote after the incumbent mayor Sergei Sobyanin. In 2013, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma, Ivan Melnikov, was nominated from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for mayor, who ultimately lost with a result of 10.7% not only to Mr. Sobyanin, but also to the candidate from the non-parliamentary opposition, Alexei Navalny. Sergei Sobyanin himself has not yet publicly announced his intention to be re-elected in 2023 for another term.

As for the strategy of the Communist Party in the upcoming mayoral election campaign, then, according to Nikolai Zubrilin, there will definitely not be a boycott of these elections by the Communists, which some media managed to report: “The Communist Party does not intend to back down under any circumstances.” As in other federal and Moscow elections in recent years, during the mayoral campaign, the Communists again intend to oppose electronic voting technologies. Among the topics that the Communist Party intends to use in its election campaign, the focus will be on health and education, as well as on the provision of housing to those on the waiting list. “We will also raise issues such as the quality of food, prices for goods and services, products and medicines. The priority is to take care of children and the older generation, increase pensions and benefits, social security for large families, support for motherhood and childhood, ”Mr. Zubrilin shared with Kommersant the plans of the party.

Political strategist Pyotr Miloserdov believes that in general, in the upcoming elections in the capital, one should talk not so much about real competition with a candidate from the government, but about the percentage of votes that a Communist Party nominee can receive based on the results of the vote. “If we take these four – Kumin, Parfenov, Zubrilin, Afonin, then the question arises of which of them has the greatest integration potential, who can unite not only the votes of the communists, who are relatively few in Moscow, but also the voices of the liberals. Of the four listed, such potential is higher for Parfenov and Kumin, ”the expert believes. For Yuri Afonin, Moscow is “a completely foreign territory,” notes Mr. Miloserdov, and participation in the mayoral elections can become risky for him: “I don’t see the potential in him to integrate the voices of communists, liberals, discontented, and also those who don’t go to the elections. If he does not perform very brightly in this election, this could affect his chances of becoming Gennady Zyuganov’s successor.” The head of the Petersburg Politics Foundation, Mikhail Vinogradov, notes that for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the election of the mayor of Moscow has never been particularly important, so the communists, in his opinion, will serve their number in 2023 as well. On the other hand, it is important for the Communist Party to test whether the “golden times” when it got good results in Moscow are finally gone, or the solidarity of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation with the authorities on the verge of dissolution against the backdrop of the events of 2022 did not cause the party “special reputational damage” in the eyes of its metropolitan voters.

Elena Rozhkova, Andrey Vinokurov