“United Russia” restarts the network of primary branches of the party in the cities

United Russia has begun a new phase of updating its base for the 2024 presidential election, two party sources told Vedomosti. As part of the “Unified Mobilization Standard” project, the party plans to reboot the primary branches in order to acquire new supporters in the field.

This year, the party plans to restart all primary branches located in the cities, says one of the interlocutors in the party. Secretaries will change there, and each primary organization will be given a task: it must bring 250 people to the base of potential party supporters who vote at the polling station assigned to the primary organization. “This will give us 10 million supporters, given the 40,000 primary organizations in the cities. Last year, 8,000 were already reloaded, a little more than 30,000 remained, ”says the source of Vedomosti.

In addition, in the regions where elections will be held this year, the party plans to hold “personnel competitions” to select secretaries of primary branches. Last year, a similar competition, for example, was held in Udmurtia, about which the governor of the region, Alexander Brechalov, spoke at a forum for heads of primary organizations. Vedomosti wrote that an experiment was conducted in Udmurtia and a number of other regions to test technologies to activate party supporters for the elections.

Brechalov then said that a competition of socially significant projects of primary branches was organized in the republic, for the implementation of which the party issued grants. An interlocutor of Vedomosti in the party says that such contests are planned to be held in other pre-election regions.

The party set the task of updating the mobilization base for the presidential elections in 2024, Vedomosti wrote. This work has been ongoing since 2021: the party members cleaned up the base of supporters – at some point, out of 25 million, only 9 million remained in it, after which they began to fill it again.

The main task is for the party to have 30 million supporters with 90% loyalty to the 2024 elections, say United Russia.

One of the interlocutors notes that the secretaries of primary organizations will not only be changed, but also increase their effectiveness through training. Other tasks include increasing trust in the party at the local level, introducing a turnout control system standard for all subjects of the Federation, creating information for activists through the “Party Clubs”, as well as a personnel reserve system at the level of regional branches.

In December, United Russia held a seminar on the 2023 elections, Vedomosti wrote. It said that United Russia plans to fight “dead branches”, because they need the “one primary – one PEC” system to work.

One of the interlocutors in the party says that the propaganda network of United Russia is built in the following way: a precinct election commission is assigned to each primary branch of the party. Now the party has more than 89,000 primary branches, and more than 93,000 PECs in Russia. On average, there are 1,200 voters per PEC (there were 108 million voters in Russia at the beginning of 2022).

The secretaries of the primary branches and their deputies work as agitators and work out 250 houses and apartments of voters who are attached to “their” PECs. According to a Vedomosti source, the number of agitators per PEC should depend on the number of households: up to 250 households – one head of the primary department, up to 500 apartments – the head and one deputy, up to 750 apartments – one head and two deputies, up to 1000 apartments – one head of department and three deputies and up to 1250 apartments – one secretary of the primary department and four deputies.

Outside of elections, secretaries of primary organizations interact with party activists and look for new ones, says a source in the party. In particular, “Party clubs” are held. This is a new form of activity that is carried out at the level of local and primary branches, he notes: “In the format of a tea party, they meet with interesting people.”

During the election campaign, the secretary of the primary branch organizes campaign work and is responsible for work with voters within the boundaries of the PEC assigned to this primary branch, says the source of Vedomosti. The work of the head of the primary organization with activists is recorded in the United Russia mobile application. The secretary and his deputies correct the data on activist supporters and add new ones, “work out contacts” with voters, as well as instructions during the campaign.

Another interlocutor in the party also says that the campaign network is being updated for the presidential elections. But it is built not only on a territorial basis, when the primary organization “should bring its supporters to the elections from the PEC assigned to it.”

There is also work with people on a corporate basis, a Vedomosti source says: “In addition, the 10-touch system sometimes continues to work, when one party member must bring 10 of his acquaintances to the elections.” He adds that the formation of a base of supporters is also due to the “landing” of party projects in the region: “In the region, for example, a project is being implemented to improve the urban environment. And at the expense of him, they recruit supporters, inviting people to the opening of parks, for example.”

Parties are political electoral machines that must win elections, increase their support base, so work on updating the mobilization infrastructure must be ongoing, says Konstantin Kostin, head of the Civil Society Development Fund. “It doesn’t matter which election it’s for,” he notes. – Such work is carried out all the time, it’s just that its results are checked at the elections. It cannot be said that in the regional elections the party is training its agitation and mobilization network; rather, it is building it up. It is clear that you need to have the maximum form for the most important elections, that is, for the presidential campaign and elections to the State Duma.