Where in 2024 will regional and municipal deputies be elected on a single voting day?

The Unified Voting Day (UVD) in 2024 will be rich not only in gubernatorial campaigns (see “Kommersant” on January 9), but also in parliamentary elections. In 13 regions they will be held at the regional level, and in 21 – at the municipal level. In addition, direct elections of mayors will be held in two administrative centers – Ulan-Ude and Anadyr. According to the expert, the electoral situation in most of these regions is quite manageable, but this does not mean that the authorities can “let the elections take their course.”

Elections of regional parliaments this fall will be held in 13 constituent entities of the Russian Federation: Moscow, the Altai Republic, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Mari El, Tatarstan, Tuva, Crimea, Sevastopol, Khabarovsk Territory, as well as Bryansk, Volgograd and Tula regions. The term of office of the parliamentary convocations elected in 2019 ends there.

That year was successful for United Russia (UR) in terms of the formation of legislative bodies in the regions. The United Russia party lists received less than half the votes only in Altai (34.2%), Mari El (37.5%) and Sevastopol (38.5%). But in the Tula region and Crimea, more than half of the voters voted for them (50.3% and 54.7%, respectively), and in all other subjects – more than 60%, up to a maximum of 80.1% in Tuva. At the same time, thanks to traditional victories in single-mandate constituencies, the party in power almost everywhere won a qualified majority, that is, at least two-thirds of the mandates. The only exceptions were the Altai State Assembly and the Legislative Assembly of Sevastopol, where United Russia received a simple majority, elected entirely according to the majority system of the Moscow City Duma, where United Russia formed the majority in a coalition with the association “My Moscow”, and, of course, the legislative Duma of the Khabarovsk Territory.

Let us recall that on the wave of popularity of LDPR member Sergei Furgal, who in September 2018 defeated United Russia governor Vyacheslav Shport in the second round, the following year the Liberal Democrats triumphantly gained control of both the regional legislature and the city parliament of Khabarovsk. At the regional level, the LDPR took a constitutional majority, and at the municipal level, in conditions of a complete “majoritarian” vote, it won 34 mandates out of 35. United Russia and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation were left without representatives at all in the City Duma, and the only “opposition” mandate was given to A Just Russia.

By the way, anticipating such a development of the situation, the outgoing convocation of the regional Duma before the 2019 elections changed the proportion of the formation of the regional parliament towards reducing the number of “list members” and increasing the number of single-mandate members (instead of the ratio of 18/18 it became 12/24). True, this did not help specifically in the Khabarovsk case, but the same technique was used more successfully in the Tula region (19/19 turned into 12/24), the Altai Republics (21/20 and 11/30) and Mari El (26/26 and 13/19).

This year the trend towards departisanship of regional parliaments will continue. For example, according to Kommersant sources, they plan to reduce the number of seats distributed according to the proportional system in Crimea. There, the ratio still remains in favor of the “list voters”: 50 mandates are distributed among the lists and 25 in the districts. Now the proportion can change in a mirror way: 25/50. According to Kommersant’s interlocutor, appropriate amendments to regional legislation are already being prepared. A similar reform could take place in Sevastopol (there it is now 16/8). But in the Volgograd Regional Duma, on the contrary, they are not going to change the proportion, sources told Kommersant: this was relevant in the previous electoral cycle, but now United Russia is “confident of victory due to the virtual absence of competition,” add Kommersant’s interlocutors.

As for parliaments in regional capitals, the number of campaigns here will be even more impressive. In addition to Khabarovsk, municipal deputies will be elected in Ulan-Ude, Magas, Elista, Simferopol, Yoshkar-Ola, Vladikavkaz, Chita, Blagoveshchensk, Bryansk, Vologda, Irkutsk, Kurgan, Murmansk, Penza, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Tula, Birobidzhan, Naryan-Mar , Anadyr and Salekhard.

Finally, within the framework of EDC-24, two mayoral election campaigns will be held – in Ulan-Ude and Anadyr. Let us remind you that there are only five administrative centers left in Russia, where city governors are directly elected by residents. Five years ago, the struggle for the post of mayor of Ulan-Ude between the protege of the head of Buryatia, Igor Shutenkov (52.5% of the votes) and the first secretary of the Republican Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Senator Vyacheslav Markhaev (36.6%) ended in rallies and clashes with law enforcement officers. However, the communist still failed to achieve a revision of the election results. This year, the “heavyweight” from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, who managed to move from the upper house to the lower house, is unlikely to fight again for the mayor’s seat, says a Kommersant source familiar with the situation. However, Mr. Shutenkov will not necessarily run for a second term, he adds.

Political scientist Konstantin Kalachev believes that all regions where elections to legislative assemblies will be held next year, with the exception of the Altai Republic and partly the Khabarovsk Territory, are “electorally controlled and absolutely predictable.” “However, it is also predictable that the Khabarovsk governor Mikhail Degtyarev will break into pieces to ensure the success of United Russia. For him, this is a test before the feds. The LDPR in the Khabarovsk Territory Duma will share second or third place with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation,” the expert predicts. But the authorities of other regions will also have to pay special attention to these elections, Mr. Kalachev continues: “Letting them take their course is fraught. The elections will take place after the presidential campaign, which this time may not raise the bar of expectations, but certainly will not lower it. And the situation in the regions does not always correspond to the media expansion of optimism: somewhere the local and regional agenda may not be so optimistic. This means that electoral methods of achieving results will have to be supplemented with administrative ones.”

Andrey Prah; corset “Kommersant”