VTsIOM saw an alarming symptom in Davankov’s election results

“The party system is waiting for change”

The results of the exit polls are not much different from the official figures of the Russian Central Election Commission, noted Mikhail Mamonov, head of the political research department of VTsIOM. Based on the results of processing 46.6% of ballots, Vladimir Putin took first place in the presidential elections of the Russian Federation. But the alignment of the “second echelon” candidates is interesting.

The picture with the distribution of places in the three outsiders is very symptomatic. As well as predictable. By the time of counting, with just over 45% of the votes, communist Nikolai Kharitonov was in second place. In third position is the candidate from “New People” Vladislav Davankov, the leader of the LDPR Leonid Slutsky closes the top three.

This situation suggests that there is a demand for change in society, says Mikhail Mamonov.

– What is of greatest interest is where and how the second-tier space will develop. There is a leader, and this is understandable. The turnout was high, as people wanted to express their position regarding the president’s policies and the vector of the country’s development. It was a deeply motivated process. It’s very interesting what will happen to “second level” candidates in three or four years, Mamonov noted.

– There is a feeling that there is a request to update the party system, the political system. Look how much the communists gained. Could you imagine that they would gain so much five years ago? No,” the sociologist concluded.

The expert assesses the second place of communist Nikolai Kharitonov as a frankly weak result of the campaign. In his opinion, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has always been a party with a clear niche, “but now this niche has gone somewhere.”

The request for an update resulted in the fact that part of the votes that the communists traditionally took, this time went to Davankov.

However, the expert also names another reason for such a serious gap in numbers between the leader and the rest:

– Presidential elections are a struggle of personalities. There was not a single person comparable in scale here,” Mamonov noted.

Sociologists explained Leonid Slutsky’s fourth place simply: it’s hard for him. The politician headed the LDPR after the death of Vladimir Zhirinovsky and is now taking the first step in the top-level electoral race. At the same time, the expert noted that Slutsky undoubtedly belongs to the group of political heavyweights.