There is a place for the old in the new territories – Newspaper Kommersant No. 54 (7499) dated 30.03.

As it became known to Kommersant, the leaders of the four new subjects of the Russian Federation in the September elections of deputies will act in the classic role of “locomotives” for Russian governors: they will run for parliament at the head of the party lists of United Russia (ER), and after the vote they will give up mandates. This will give the Kremlin the opportunity not only to test the electoral potential of the interim, but also to show that they have a long-term stake, the expert says.

A source in the leadership of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) told Kommersant that Denis Pushilin, secretary of the Donetsk cell of the party, will become the first number on the United Russia list in the September elections of deputies of the People’s Council. The republican part of the list will consist of three people, who will enter it in addition to Mr. Pushilin – “they will show the primaries,” the interlocutor of Kommersant added.

As a reminder, on September 10, it is planned to elect the first convocations of their legislative bodies within Russia in the new regions. In the DPR and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), these will be the People’s Councils, successors to the parliaments from the period of their self-proclaimed independence. Legislative assemblies will be created anew in Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, since the regions joined the Russian Federation without them.

As previously reported by Kommersant, all four parliaments are supposed to be formed according to a proportional system, that is, all deputy mandates will be distributed among party lists. The presence and size of the region-wide part of the list (these candidates are empowered on a priority basis), as well as the minimum and maximum number of regional groups, are established by a regional law, which has not yet been adopted in any of the new subjects.

An informed source close to the presidential administration told Kommersant that it is highly likely that acting governors will head the lists of United Russia in three other new regions (Leonid Pasechnik in the LPR, Yevgeny Balitsky in the Zaporozhye region, and Vladimir Saldo in the Kherson region) . “This is the plan for now. Of course, everything is possible, but I don’t know what needs to change in order for it to be corrected, ”says the interlocutor of Kommersant.

Russian governors traditionally act as “engines” of the United Russia lists in the elections to the legislative assemblies of the regions. In most subjects where deputies will be elected on September 10, the United Russia faction was “imported” to the current convocation of parliament by the then leaders – Rustem Khamitov (Bashkiria), Alexei Tsydenov (Buryatia), Alexei Orlov (Kalmykia), Aisen Nikolaev (Yakutia), Viktor Zimin (Khakassia) ), Igor Orlov (Arkhangelsk Region), Svetlana Orlova (Vladimir Region), Sergey Tsivilev (Kemerovo Region), Vasily Golubev (Rostov Region), Sergey Morozov (Ulyanovsk Region) and Alexey Tsybulsky (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug). The only exceptions were the Smolensk and Irkutsk regions (they were headed by oppositionists Alexei Ostrovsky and Sergei Levchenko), Yaroslavl (there was no head part of the list) and Ivanovo regions (the speaker was the locomotive) and the Trans-Baikal Territory, where the EP list was headed by the hero-cosmonaut Yevgeny Tarelkin.

The decision to put the first numbers of the acting heads of the new regions is dictated by the fact that after the September elections, all of them should remain in their positions, since they deserved it with their biography and the “risks” that they took on, the Kommersant source explains. According to him, even if someone fails to cope with some performance indicators, they have a chance for a new term: “And since indirect elections of heads through legislative assemblies are provided for in all four new regions, it is logical that governors should also head the electoral lists United Russia”.

Recall that until April 27, applications for the UR primaries are being accepted – a preliminary intra-party vote that will determine the lists of candidates for deputies, including in new territories. According to the latest data, 67 and 54 people have already signed up for the primaries in the DPR and LPR, respectively (it is planned to elect 90 and 50 deputies to the People’s Councils). According to the Secretary of the General Council of the United Russia Andriy Turchak, “these are veterans of Donbass, and social activists, representatives of the social sphere, current deputies.” In the LPR, Denis Miroshnichenko, speaker of parliament and secretary of the United Russia cell, was the first to submit documents for participation. Vladimir Bidevka, chairman of the People’s Council of the DPR, also plans to participate in the primaries in the near future, he told Kommersant. Both speakers did not anticipate the results of the pre-selection and their place on the list. Governors usually do not participate in the primaries: the decision on their candidacies is made by the Presidium of the General Council of the United Russia.

Political scientist Rostislav Turovsky considers the nomination of the leaders of new territories at the head of the lists of United Russia as a logical decision of the party, which puts them in an equal position: “It confirms that the center is betting on each of them. And at the same time, it will allow you to check how successful each of them is in the electoral field.” It would also be logical to strengthen the lists at the expense of the participants in the special operation, social activists and social workers, the expert argues: “They can and should be promoted in the elections so as not to reduce the campaign to the work of the heads of the locomotives. Federal curators may also be in demand, who will be able to prove themselves and convey the center’s guidelines to the regions.”

Andrey Ash, Andrey Vinokurov