The second largest factions in the new regions went to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party

United Russia is gaining a confident majority in the legislative assemblies of new regions. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation in three subjects lost 2nd place to the Liberal Democratic Party, in the DPR they received almost the same number of votes. “New people” were elected only in the DPR: they did not run in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

Based on the results of processing 100% of the protocols, the election results are as follows:

According to political scientist Alexander Nemtsev, the LDPR ranks 2nd thanks to the memory of its late leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who was also known in Ukraine. In turn, local Ukrainian communists were present in politics and were not popular. “Voters in the new territories believe that communists are the same everywhere – but there it was an ineffective opposition, and the LDPR is Zhirinovsky’s party, which knows how to speak brightly, clearly and to the point,” he explained.

Press Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, State Duma deputy Alexander Yushchenko noted that the most important thing is that elections in new regions took place at all. “Taking into account the fact that many areas of the regions there are not under Russian control, many cities are located directly on the line of contact, chaotic shelling goes on from morning to evening – the figures suggest a certain error taking into account the listed circumstances,” he told Vedomosti.

According to Yushchenko, it is important for the party that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has been present in the region since 2014 and residents of Donetsk and Lugansk are talking about this. For example, according to him, “they remember which party was the initiator of the recognition of independence” of the DPR and LPR. In February 2022, two documents recognizing the independence of the DPR and LPR were submitted to the State Duma – by United Russia and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and the second was adopted.

Election commissions reported a fairly high turnout at the elections in the regions: in the DPR – 76.41%, in the LPR – 72.47%, in the Zaporozhye region – 68.11%, in the Kherson region – 65.14%.

At the beginning of the final day, the CEC calculated that the DPR had the highest turnout in legislative elections. HRC member Kirill Vyshinsky said that the new subjects “are one of the few territories not even in Russia, but in the world in general, where turnout will exceed exactly 90%, where people know for sure that their vote will influence their lives, their future”. According to him, “this is a very important example of what elections can mean.” It is worth noting that it is not known from what number of voters the percentage of turnout is calculated: the Central Election Commission classified data on the number of voters in new regions in December 2022.

High electoral activity is due, firstly, to multi-day voting, and secondly, to home voting, which makes it possible to reach the maximum number of people, political scientist Evgeniy Minchenko told Vedomosti. “I think that it was very important for the authorities to hold these elections to show that everything is normal, the situation is under control, that these regions are already deeply integrated into Russian political life, the Russian political system,” the expert noted.

Nemtsev notes that the voters who came to the polling stations were participants in last year’s referendum on accession and with their current activity they confirm that choice and “readiness to play by the rules of the Russian Federation.” He added that by voting, people expect order and increased levels of stability. “In the overwhelming majority of cases, candidates for deputies are local residents, which indicates that a full-fledged regional government is being formed, relying on local citizens,” the interlocutor noted.

From September 1 to 4, 2023, citizens of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions living outside their regions could vote at 329 extraterritorial polling stations in 81 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. In addition, early voting was organized for voters located in hard-to-reach areas and settlements near the line of combat contact. In the DPR and Zaporozhye region, early voting began on August 31, in the LPR and Kherson region – on September 2. It ended on September 7. In the Kherson region, the first day of the main voting, which fell on Friday, was declared a holiday.

The duration of the “early term” was set by regional election commissions. Chairman of the DPR Election Commission Vladimir Vysotsky explained that such deadlines were set to prevent queues at polling stations due to the danger of shelling. Early voting took place in remote and front-line areas. Precinct election commissions traveled to neighborhood areas and conducted door-to-door visits. In Gorlovka, three mobile polling stations traveled around the city on large buses; in Volnovakha they adopted the idea, but there was only one bus and a smaller capacity. The turnout in the elections to the legislative assembly after this stage exceeded 45%.

According to Vysotsky himself, it was still not possible to avoid incidents – at least twice members of the PEC came under fire from the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donetsk and Volnovakha. In the latter case, four members of the commission were injured. Polling stations in new regions closed early on the last day of voting (elections there, as in most constituent entities of the Russian Federation, were three days long). In rural settlements of the Zaporozhye region, polling stations closed at 14.00, in cities – at 16.00. In the LPR and Kherson region, voting ended at 16.00, in the DPR – at 15.00. Vysotsky explained the decision to end voting early by the fact that many residents had already voted during early voting and two days of work at stationary polling stations. Also, according to him, the election commission was guided by the desire to “ensure the safety of not only voters, but also members of our precinct commissions.”

On the night of September 10, a polling station in the Zaporozhye region was destroyed as a result of a drone attack, deputy chairman of the commission Nikolai Bulaev told reporters at the information center of the Central Election Commission of Russia. There was no one inside at the time of the attack, and there were no casualties in the incident. According to Bulaev, the purpose of the attack was “to intimidate so that people do not go to work.”

The first day of elections in the country took place against the backdrop of shelling of the Kherson region by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The regional election commission was evacuated due to a declared missile attack and was forced to move to an “alternate airfield” where there is no communication. It later turned out that in the Skadovsky municipal district two drones were shot down by an air defense system in the immediate vicinity of polling stations. The chairman of the regional election commission, Marina Zakharova, called the incident a “sabotage provocation” on the part of Kyiv.