Threes for five – Newspaper Kommersant No. 144 (7345) of 08/10/2022
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The tops of the lists of parliamentary parties in the autumn elections to legislative assemblies were formed mainly according to the principles familiar to these parties, Kommersant found out, having studied the top three lists. Thus, the governors and other high-status persons will become the faces of United Russia, while other parties have relied on the leaders of regional branches. In the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, they are considered the most popular local politicians, in A Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP) they expect that the heads of the party cells will prove their worth in the elections, and in the New People they want the heads of the departments to receive deputy status as soon as possible. And only the LDPR had to change its election strategy: previously, all regional party lists were personally headed by the late leader of the party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
Of the six regions where parliaments will be elected in September, there are so-called common parts of party lists in five (except for the Saratov region). Kommersant analyzed the top three lists of parliamentary parties: it is these candidates, who will be seen on the ballots by all voters in the region, who should motivate citizens to vote for their party.
As Sergei Perminov, deputy secretary of the United Russia General Council, told Kommersant, this year the party did not bring to its branches any strict principles for the formation of common parts of the list: “We gave our colleagues the maximum degree of freedom and allowed them to act as they see fit. Now there is no federal campaign, so we give them the opportunity to choose the configuration that they consider the most appropriate for winning.
As a result, in four regions, the leaders of the United Russia lists were governors acting as “locomotives”: these are Sergey Menyailo (North Ossetia), Alexander Brechalov (Udmurtia), Oleg Melnichenko (Penza Region) and Valery Limarenko (Sakhalin Region). Mr. Menyailo’s company in the top three was made up of billionaire Vladimir Guriev and State Duma deputy Zurab Makiyev; the latter, according to Kommersant’s information, may become a senator from the legislature of the region. In the Sakhalin region, together with the governor, the chairman of the regional Duma Andrei Khapochkin and Evgenia Tuchkova, who indicated her status as “temporarily unemployed” (she was previously mentioned in the media as the head of the Owl search and rescue team), are running. In Udmurtia and the Penza region, the general parts of the United Russia lists included deputies of legislative assemblies and current senators. In the Krasnodar Territory, instead of the governor, the list was headed by the Chairman of the Legislative Assembly Yuri Burlachko, and the top three also included Senator from the regional parliament Vladimir Beketov and Deputy of the Legislative Assembly Ivan Cherezov. Not without status figures in the Saratov region, but since the local law does not provide for a common part in party lists, well-known politicians will act as leaders of territorial groups. Among them are the former head of the region Valery Radaev, Mayor of Saratov Mikhail Isaev, State Duma deputies Nikolai Pankov, Andrey Vorobyov and Alexander Strelyukhin.
The Communists, as the first deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, State Duma deputy Yuri Afonin, told Kommersant, “the tactics of locomotives” are not used.
“The candidates for the troikas are proposed by the regional branches, and then they are coordinated with the central apparatus of the party,” he explained. The main principle of selection, according to him, is the popularity of local politicians. And the leaders of the list, as a rule, are the first secretaries of regional branches and ex-gubernatorial candidates from the Communist Party.
In North Ossetia and Udmurtia, the lists of the Communist Party were actually headed by the first secretaries of regional branches, and in the Krasnodar Territory and the Penza Region, by ex-gubernatorial candidates (Krasnodar City Duma deputy Alexander Safronov and State Duma deputy Alexei Kornienko). Penza communists will be led to the elections by State Duma deputy, head of the legal service of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Georgy Kamnev. Until recently, he was the first secretary of the regional branch of the party, but resigned shortly after the Duma elections. The leaders of the lists were mainly accompanied by the current deputies of the regional legislative assemblies and the City Duma from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Council SRHR on political issues, Dmitry Gusev told Kommersant that when forming the first three in these elections, the party professes its traditional principle: “Lists should be headed by heads of regional branches. If you are a leader, show what you are worth. In general, this principle is observed: in most regions, the lists of Social Revolutionaries were headed by the chairmen of the councils of regional branches, and in the Penza region, in the general part of the list, the SRZP has only one candidate – the head of the branch, Alexei Shpagin. But there are two exceptions. In Udmurtia, the head of the party cell Vadim Belousov participates in the gubernatorial elections, and the party list in the elections to the State Council is headed by his deputies Andrei Smirnov and Igor Strelkov. And on Sakhalin, the secretary of the bureau of the regional branch, Vadim Politinsky, became the leader of the party list. On the whole, the top troikas of the SRZP, as well as those of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, are mainly staffed by deputies of legislative assemblies and the City Duma.
But the LDPR had to change its traditional strategy in the 2022 elections.
Previously, all lists of the Liberal Democratic Party in the regional elections were personally headed by the chairman of the party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In the first elections after his death, as Yaroslav Nilov, deputy head of the LDPR Duma faction, explained to Kommersant, the party has a “general principle” according to which party lists are headed by regional coordinators, faction leaders and current deputies. In addition, the LDPR is trying to include its activists in the top three. The length of service in the party also plays in favor of the candidate, Mr. Nilov added.
In almost all regions, the first places on the lists of the LDPR were indeed taken by the coordinators of the local branches of the party. Only in the Krasnodar Territory, the leader of the party cell and deputy of the regional legislative assembly, Ivan Tutushkin, was in second place, losing the primacy to the State Duma deputy from the Liberal Democratic Party Yuri Napso. The top troikas of the party also include regional and local deputies and assistants to State Duma deputies.
Against the background of their colleagues in parliament, candidates from the general parts of the lists of the Duma newcomer – the party “New people” – look less status. Only in Sakhalin do all representatives of the first party troika have deputy mandates as members of the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City Duma. Basically, the lists of the party participating in five out of six elections (except for North Ossetia) are headed by the heads of regional branches. According to a Kommersant source in New People, the lists for the current elections were formed from entrepreneurs and regional activists, while the party had only one fairly strict requirement: “The heads of regional branches must either be leaders of the lists or in passing places.”
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