United Russia prescribed “radical love” – Newspaper Kommersant No. 227 (7428) of 07.12.
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In the upcoming elections in 2023, United Russia should pay attention to working with citizens who are looking for a “new normal”, and take into account the experience of the Turkish opposition with its concept of “radical love”. This, as it became known to “Kommersant”, said Deputy Secretary of the General Council of “United Russia” (ER) Sergei Perminov at a seminar for the heads of the party’s election headquarters. The experts who spoke to the party members added that so far United Russia retains a confident leadership, but warned that no one can yet say what news will come from the special operation and what will happen to the socio-economic situation in Russia.
From December 5 to 7, the central office of the United Russia is holding a seminar for the heads of regional election headquarters, technologists and representatives of media blocks, two sources who participated in the event told Kommersant. First of all, the training is devoted to the regional elections of 2023. According to Kommersant’s interlocutors, Sergei Perminov made the keynote speech, talking about the main challenges and tasks of the new electoral cycle. According to him, United Russia aims to achieve victory for its candidates in the first round of gubernatorial elections and form a majority in all legislative assemblies of the regions.
Now in society there is a consolidation around the president and United Russia, a “patriotic renaissance” and “domestication of the elites” are taking place, the trend towards paternalism and a “state-centric model of behavior” dominates, according to sources, the words of Mr. Perminov. In his opinion, in the conditions of sanctions pressure and confrontation with the West, only the state can guarantee the implementation of public demand, and people are aware of this. In this regard, Sergei Perminov urged his colleagues to think about how to expand the circle of their voters at the expense of those who have not decided on their attitude to what is happening, young people, “caring” and veterans of a special military operation.
In total, Mr. Perminov singled out three main target groups for the 2023 elections: participants in the special operation and their families; people “affected by the aggression of Ukraine”; other Russians who remain oriented towards “normality”. The EP should be the first to demonstrate its participation and actively involve them in its activities as “heroes of the new time.” The second group mainly consists of refugees, residents of border regions and new territories (although the seminar did not clearly say whether elections will be held there in 2023). The party must show them that it will not leave them alone and will provide assistance both through volunteering and at the level of federal decisions.
The largest group of the population, according to Sergei Perminov, are those who are “in search of a new normality.” For them, personal well-being and self-realization remain the main priorities, but due to the “paternalistic trend”, the implementation of this request is now more connected with the state. According to United Russia, United Russia should convince these people that no social guarantees will be dismantled and freedom of discussion, movement and self-realization will be preserved in the country. For this group, the party should be positioned as a subject that reduces the pressure of the West.
Mr. Perminov also spoke about the tactics of the opponents of United Russia, recalling in this regard the success of the Turkish opposition in the elections of the mayor of Istanbul in 2019 and its strategy of “radical love”. It is based on the assumption that the key emotions for a person are love and fear. Based on this, the Turkish opposition abandoned discussions on the problems of “high politics” and focused on the theme of uniting society and jointly fighting local problems and poverty. Ordinary agitators were advised not to start a conversation with people with party issues and urged to treat their interlocutors with respect. As a result, opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu was elected as the new mayor of Istanbul. With this example, the deputy secretary of the United Russia General Council, on the one hand, demonstrated that in a seemingly favorable situation for the authorities, the opposition can find a winning strategy, and on the other hand, he called on fellow party members to use the achievements of Turkish opposition technologists, Kommersant’s interlocutors explain. In particular, United Russia was recommended to place special emphasis on offline contacts and on solving local problems of the population.
Also, the head of the Civil Society Development Fund Konstantin Kostin spoke to the participants of the seminar, sharing some of the theses of his speech with Kommersant. In particular, he drew United Russia’s attention to the “high volatility of public sentiment.” “You cannot run a campaign in the same way as it was done before, when there is one clear strategy and work is being done on it. We must constantly adapt it, adjust to changes in the demands of society,” explained Mr. Kostin. According to him, although the main themes of the upcoming elections are clear, it is impossible to predict their specific significance for work with voters at different stages of the election campaign. No one can say what kind of news will come from the special operation zone, how exactly the decline in socio-economic indicators will manifest itself in each electoral region, and what will be the share of certain sources of information in political media consumption, the political strategist lists. “The campaign will not be easy: according to the forecasts of the Ministry of Economic Development and the Central Bank, it is in 2023 that the peak of the economic downturn will occur,” Konstantin Kostin warns.
Finally, INSOMAR Director of Political Analysis Viktor Poturemsky spoke at the seminar about the electoral positions of United Russia, based on recent research by his company. According to these data, now things are going quite well for the party in power, it still dominates in ratings over its parliamentary counterparts. “The party maintains its leading position and is on a growing trend, because it is perceived as a political tool of President Vladimir Putin and as an entity that can work effectively to protect the interests of the mobilized,” the expert explained. “The party is perceived as unconditionally capable of effectively working on the agenda of a special operation, for example , in the direction of protecting the interests of the mobilized and their families. At the same time, Mr. Poturemsky agrees with his colleague Kostin that United Russia should not relax: “The party has already faced a high density of events this year in the space of multi-vector influence on public opinion. And this will be one of the main challenges for the party in next year’s elections.”
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