The governor of the Voronezh region is looking for proxies for the election campaign

For the governor of the Voronezh region, Alexander Gusev, municipalities are looking for candidates for proxies and public opinion leaders (LOMs) who could participate in his election campaign. This was told to Vedomosti by sources in two district administrations of the region.

The corresponding letter signed by the deputy chairman of the government of the region Viktor Logvinov dated May 31 was received by the heads of administrations and municipal districts (Vedomosti got acquainted with the document). The letter says that “in accordance with the instruction” of Gusev, officials need to “provide information” about such people by June 1. The lists were instructed to be sent to the first deputy chairman of the government of the Voronezh region, Vladimir Popov.

The interlocutor in the administration of the Talovsky district said that trusted representatives had already been selected. The urgency of the assignment, addressed to the heads of government, did not cause difficulties, since “this is a standard procedure,” he said. As a rule, in districts, the same people (headmasters, doctors, heads of cultural institutions, etc.) become proxies in elections from year to year, the source notes.

United Russia Gusev has headed the Voronezh Region since 2018.

On April 30, Vedomosti wrote that he had received permission from the Kremlin to be re-elected for a second term, and on May 2, the governor met with Russian President Vladimir Putin via videoconference. The head of state noted the good performance in the region and noted that “the situation is stable,” but asked Gusev to pay attention to problems: a high accident rate on the roads and “the level of acute poisoning from alcohol-containing products.”

On May 25, Gusev on his Telegram channel announced plans to participate in the gubernatorial elections, which will be held on a single voting day on September 10. In order to be nominated, he will go through the procedure of intra-party primaries (at the level of governors, it follows a closed model). Representatives of other parties have not yet declared their readiness to participate in the election of the governor of the Voronezh region.

Political scientists Vladimir Slatinov and Rostislav Turovsky note Gusev’s lack of serious electoral problems, but point out the need to consolidate positions in the municipalities. With the latter, in their opinion, the distribution order for the heads of districts is connected to find trusted representatives and LOMs for the governor. “Gusev’s main problem is that he is an absolute technocrat without a bright public image. He does not demonstrate spectacular public positioning. So it is quite natural that LOMs will be called to help the governor,” says Slatinov. According to him, in the elections to the Voronezh Regional Duma in 2020 and the State Duma in 2021, candidates from the government received consistently high results in rural areas and significantly lower results in Voronezh (of which Gusev was mayor).

An interlocutor of Vedomosti, close to the embassy of the Central Federal District, notes that this time a new team will be involved in the election of the governor – people who are very far from understanding this procedure, so the current incident with the letter is unlikely to be the last. Elections in the region, however, are made by rural leaders, who produce convincing numbers, he adds: “They already know what to do.”

“Given the constantly opposing position of the million-plus city of Voronezh, Gusev’s main electorate is in rural areas, and, again, due to the lack of a bright public image, it is necessary to mobilize LOMs,” the political scientist notes.