MOSCOW At the weekend, Muscovites will vote in the city council elections, but this is hardly visible in the capital’s streetscape.
– There is no information about the elections anywhere. It seems that these elections are not necessary for anyone, Muscovite Gleb Mironov ponders.
Mironov says that he has only seen election announcements on the gosuslugi official service of the network and one small poster in his settlement center. He plans to abstain.
Since Russia started its war of aggression in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s grip on the political system has tightened even more, which can also be seen in the weekend’s regional and local elections in various parts of Russia. Elections at different levels are held in a total of 83 regions.
Muscovite Svetlana Shemelyova says he will vote. He is satisfied with the city’s current administration.
– Moscow is beautiful and everything works.
His friend Lyudmila Chernova agrees. They hope that “genuine patriots” would be elected in the elections, regardless of their party affiliation.
– There are difficult moments in the life of every country. We are going through a very difficult moment now, but we are united around our president, Lyudmila Chernova says.
Denis Vlasov says that he approaches the local elections calmly. They don’t interest him in the same way that federal elections do. Vlasov says he will vote for the Communists anyway.
– This mess has been watched enough. It would be time to slowly stop it. One and the other have already been tried. We need a new type of welfare state.
The low interest in the elections may even be manipulated. Those in power do not want to give room for any kind of protest voting.
The authorities rejected the candidates of the Liberal Party
Russian elections have not been considered free and fair for a long time, but the president Vladimir Putin In recent years, the administration has further tightened the reins of “guided democracy”. The room for maneuver of the opposition parties loyal to the Kremlin has also narrowed.
Strict rules on the registration of candidates give the election authorities the opportunity to weed out unwanted candidates from the elections. The authorities are also able to direct the nomination of opposition parties loyal to the Kremlin.
In Moscow, the traditional liberal party Jabloko did not get a single candidate for the City Duma elections. In St. Petersburg, the authorities rejected Jabloko’s candidates from district council elections. The party has been critical of the war of aggression in Ukraine.
Opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin has published a list of candidates who could have the best chance of defeating the ruling United Russia party in the Moscow city council elections. This is a tactic that the late opposition politician Alexei Navalny at one time recommended.
Nadeždin gained visibility at the beginning of the year when she unsuccessfully tried to run for the presidential election in March. He is still not as well-known and respected as Navalnyi. It is difficult to estimate how far his message will carry in opposition-minded circles.
Russia’s central government tries to control the elections of regional leaders the most.
The vulnerable situation is, for example, in the Republic of Bashkortostan, where the sitting governor Radii Habirov is nominated for the next season.
Habirov is not very popular, and at the beginning of the year, the republic saw widespread protests due to the imprisonment of a local activist. The Kremlin cannot allow the governor to fall in the election, so independent candidates have not been allowed to run.
Likewise for the unpopular governor in St. Petersburg To Aleksandr Beglov counter-candidates as insignificant as possible have been arranged so that the elections do not arouse unnecessary interest.
The governors exercise great power in their regions, but in Putin’s power hierarchy, the so-called vertical of power, they are no longer able to defy the central government like in the 1990s.
Many of the current governors are sent from outside the Kremlin, and they do not have close relationships with the elites of their regions, let alone the citizens. It makes them dependent on the support of the Kremlin.
Such governors are called Varjagits, after the Vikings who once roamed the river routes of Russia.
Voters are attracted by lotteries
However, even boring elections need voters. The regional authorities have their means of ensuring that the employees of public institutions and companies dependent on state power vote.
In Moscow, the authorities trick voters with raffles, where discount points are offered for, among other things, public transport and other services.
Similar methods are used in other areas as well. For example, in Bashkortostan, voters are raffling off e.g. electric scooters, laptops and televisions. In the Kaliningrad region, the main prize is a trip to St. Petersburg for the whole family.
Lotteries attract apolitical voters who tend to vote for the party in power.
In Moscow, the authorities are directing citizens to vote online remotely. Voting with a paper ticket at the polling station had to be requested in advance.
Electronic voting may seem convenient, but it also makes it easy to manipulate the election result.
The Russian Communist Party has encouraged its supporters to go to the traditional polling stations. The party’s elderly core supporters are not necessarily up to date with the latest technology.
The Communist Party’s role as a channel for protest votes has been weakened by the fact that the party has positioned itself firmly on the Kremlin’s line during the war of aggression.
Regional and local elections are still being held under the shadow of war. Now there are Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region of Russia. It threatens to send uncertainty across the country.
In Moscow, the mayor By Sergei Sobyan has always tried to maintain the impression of normality: his administration has actively improved green areas and developed public transport. The Moscow leadership wants to keep the citizens calm.
– We don’t need turmoil in our country. Revolutions do not bring anything good. There were already several times. We have a peaceful and good life, says Svetlana Šemeljova from Moscow.