Voter turnout at the September 10 elections. In the Moscow district of Airport, early voting was declared invalid. Russian politics in cartoons
MOSCOW, September 28 - RIA Novosti. The downward trend in voter turnout continued in the September 10 elections, although there was no record low turnout in any region; in most cases, its figures were lower than in previous similar elections, experts from the Committee of Civil Initiatives (KGI) of Alexei Kudrin found out.
On Thursday, the Committee for State Property Committee presented a report on the results of the 2017 election campaign. Elections of various levels were held in Russia on a single voting day on September 10 in 82 of 85 regions, in 16 subjects they elected heads of regions, in six - deputies of legislative assemblies.
“The results of the elections on September 10, 2017 showed that the downward trend in voter turnout continues. Although there are no record numbers this time... in most cases, turnout in the 2017 elections was lower than in previous similar elections,” the report says.
Experts recalled that records of low turnout in regional elections (21%) were recorded in 2014-2015 - in the elections to the Moscow City Duma and in the elections of the governor of the Arkhangelsk region. The reasons for the decline in turnout in general, according to committee experts, are the postponement of elections to September, a decrease in the competitiveness of elections, as well as a decrease in campaign activity of parties and candidates.
General turnout figures
This year, experts recorded the only case of increased voter activity in the elections for the governor of the Sverdlovsk region (turnout was 37.3%), activity in previous similar elections in this region was at 33.6%.
In other regions, a decrease in turnout was noted. If, for example, in Kaliningrad region the decrease in turnout turned out to be “symbolic” (the difference was 0.4%), while the decline was noticeable in Mari El (3.5%), Kirov region(5.9%), Udmurtia (8.5%) and, especially, the Novgorod region (14.4%).
At the same time, in the elections of regional parliaments, the picture, according to KGI experts, turned out to be ambiguous: in those three regions where the turnout in October 2012 was the highest (45-49%), it still increased, and in the other three regions it decreased. Thus, an increase in turnout in elections of this level was recorded in North Ossetia, the Penza and Saratov regions, and in Udmurtia, the Krasnodar Territory and Sakhalin, the turnout, on the contrary, decreased in comparison with previous similar elections.
In the elections of representative bodies of regional centers, out of 11 cities where elections at this level were held, turnout increased in only three: Cherkessk, Vladivostok and Yaroslavl, the KGI clarified. Experts note that in most cases, turnout in the regional center in these elections was lower than in municipal areas.
Separately, experts analyzed the turnout in municipal elections in Moscow; KGI noted that all previous similar elections were combined with elections over high level. Against this background, the turnout of 14.8% does not give the impression of being extremely low, experts clarified - although it is noticeably lower than 21% in the Moscow City Duma elections, “but it is obvious that the interest of Muscovites in municipal elections is even lower than in city elections.” At the same time, voter activity in these elections in different areas varied greatly - in some areas of the center and close to the center, in which there was mainly an active struggle, the turnout exceeded 20%, low turnout was observed in the outlying areas.
The KGI also reviewed the situation in the Sverdlovsk region, where intraregional differences in turnout were noted. Experts came to the conclusion that the lottery, held on election day in some cities (Ekaterinburg was not among them), “played a significant role.” Turnout in these territories, according to KGI, increased by 7.3% compared to 2016, while in territories where the lottery was not held, turnout decreased by 8.2%. On the other hand, the call of the mayor of Yekaterinburg Evgeny Roizman to boycott the elections, according to KGI, contributed to a decrease in turnout in the regional center (by 15.5% compared to 2016).
Early, home-based and without absentee
In the data on voting at the place of actual location without the need to take absentee ballots, KGI experts found “a lot of unclear things.” Thus, according to the Central Election Commission, 223,407 people submitted applications to vote at their actual location 45-5 days before voting day, and 21,928 people four or less days before the elections (that is, special applications with security stamps).
“However, our calculation based on data extracted from the CEC website gives different numbers - 183,464 and 19,427. As for the number of applications submitted four days before voting day and later, we assume that not all TECs have these data entered.” , says the report.
In general, as experts note, “we can conclude that new mechanism allowed a significant portion of citizens to exercise their voting rights." According to their data, the movement of voters at polling stations occurred mainly from the regional periphery to regional centers and large cities.
“Thus, this mechanism allows voters whose official place of residence is in the rural outback, and whose actual place of residence is in a large city, to vote. Obviously, at the federal elections there will be much more such citizens,” the KGI believes.
“A clearly inflated share of early voters in Barnaul, Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Omsk and Pskov... At the same time, the low level of early voting in Stary Oskol and Naro-Fominsk raises suspicions that voters were prevented from exercising their right to early voting,” - noted in the report.
The committee clarified that the level of early voting in many districts of Moscow was below 1% of the number of voters who voted, and in the Airport and Levoberezhny districts not a single voter voted early. At the same time, the level of home voting in some areas was quite high by Moscow standards - for example, in one of the districts of the Krasnoselsky district it was 9.2%.
On September 10, 2017, Single Voting Day, elections will be held in Russia different levels. What will the turnout be in the upcoming elections and what influences its level? Experts spoke about this at a press conference in Moscow, during which a report from the Foundation for the Study of Democracy was presented with a forecast of turnout in the upcoming gubernatorial elections in Russian regions, FBA reports. "Economy Today" .
Member Public Chamber Russia, director of the Foundation for Research on Democracy, Maxim Grigoriev, immediately named the regions with the highest turnout. According to him, greatest activity residents of Saratov, Sevastopol and Belgorod demonstrate. “In most cases, our preliminary forecast corresponds to forecasts in the regions themselves,” noted Maxim Grigoriev. — It should be noted that, for example, in the mayoral elections of Yekaterinburg in 2013, the presence of Roizman among the candidates did not in any way affect voter turnout. As for the elections in the Kirov region, where the post of governor was held by Nikita Belykh, in 2014, even despite this figure, the turnout was no more than 30%.”
“For Sevastopol, the issue of elections is urgent, because in our city there has never been a popular election of the city governor. Therefore, I agree with the assessment that we fall into the first group in terms of turnout and activity in the gubernatorial elections. Our research shows that we will have a turnout in the elections of more than 40%,” confirmed the forecast, a member of the Public Chamber of Sevastopol, member working group“For fair elections” Anatoly Lavrik.
Another reason for the high predicted turnout for the elections was highlighted by Alexander Brod, a member of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights under the President of Russia. He is confident that the activity of the population is influenced by the economic situation in the region: the higher the economic growth, the higher the voter turnout: “Look how much Saransk has changed over the past 15 years. The voter sees development and begins to trust their candidates more.”
At the same time, there are significant shortcomings in the organization of the electoral process. As Igor Borisov, a member of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights under the President of Russia, emphasized, “turnout is not an indicator of the legality or, conversely, the conduct of elections. It's a pity that the system election commission did not penetrate the Internet. Therefore, the district level of elections is in limbo. Although there are not many resources for this.”
Borisov emphasized that turnout also depends on how the elections are presented on the Internet. Also, the desire to come and vote depends on the political culture of the region. “Having analyzed several regions, we came to the conclusion that turnout is unique in each region. One can highlight the stable behavior of voters, for example in Khanty-Mansiysk, where the turnout at polling stations is always average.”
The Unified Voting Day has ended in Russia. Based on the results of the elections of regional heads, as well as regional and municipal elections on September 10, 2017, expert assessments were divided into two categories. Some talk about “absolute normality” and “artificial excitement” around low voter turnout; for others, it becomes the basis for statements about the actual referendum nature past voting and the true indifference of the population to the outcome of the elections. The minimization of turnout, which was partly observed in some regions of the country, is also called one of the possible mechanisms for "running in" future presidential elections in the country. Details - in the material Nakanune.RU.
General Director of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications Dmitry Orlov noted that voter turnout rates in the current elections - "quite normal for local or regional elections."
“In some places, the turnout, according to preliminary data, even exceeded the corresponding figures for similar campaigns in previous years. For example, in the regional elections in the Saratov region, 46.03% of voters had voted by 18:00, while in 2012 in the elections of deputies of the regional Duma the corresponding figure was same time was only 36.54%. And, of course, it is extremely strange to compare the turnout in regional and, especially, local elections with similar indicators in federal ones. Different agendas, different attitudes of voters towards these campaigns are the basics,” - Orlov says.
United Russia calls turnout rates in the constituent entities of the Federation “absolutely normal” for any democratic country and comparable to similar indicators in regional elections in France or the UK. In particular, this was previously stated by Vice Speaker of the State Duma Peter Tolstoy.
Based on the results of the elections, many experts are in favor of "naturalness", including in relation to turnout, stating that the “unnatural” habits of driving people to the polls using administrative resource worse than low turnout and only “rape” political system.
In particular, this opinion was voiced by a political scientist at the Election Night online marathon Pavel Danilin. “Who needs municipal elections in Moscow? These are people whom no one has ever seen, no one wants to go vote for them, so we have 10-12%, which is already good in such a situation. The more natural the turnout, even minimal, the more positive", - he commented.
Another political scientist, president of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation Mikhail Vinogradov also noted that the turnout in general was “quite expected and more or less natural.” “The regions have different traditions - let’s see what happens in Mordovia or Belgorod. But turnout is fighting with electoral tradition,” - he said.
Deputy of the Council of Deputies of the Moscow Region Tagansky in Moscow Ilya Sviridov, in turn, is optimistic about the results of the elections in Moscow. In his opinion, expectedly low turnout in the elections municipal deputies in the capital, around which there is so much controversy, “did not happen.”
“There was a surge in turnout. This is some new event, because Moscow usually sets new standards for conducting political struggle. Despite the fact that everyone is accustomed to scolding this second Sunday of September and voting day, the fact that the campaigning itself falls on the main month, when everyone is in vacations. Despite this, in many districts of Moscow it turned out to be a really interesting, competitive election campaign. “United Russia, despite all their political technologies, was not able to take as many mandates as they expected,” - he commented.
The municipal deputy emphasized that in some areas of Moscow the turnout was above 20%, that is, higher than in the elections to the Moscow City Duma. “What happened in Moscow will happen in Russia. This means that opposition parties have learned to bring voters to the “terrible” September elections. New elections are ahead, in which the Internet plays a big role,” - Sviridov believes.
It is worth noting that not only the global network is highlighted as an important and positive tool in the struggle to change the political structure in the country. The Minchenko Consulting agency also drew attention to the positive technologies of the past election campaign in the regions. Thus, the authors of reports on “Politburo 2.0” called interesting experiment, held in the Sverdlovsk region, with drawings of apartments and cars at polling stations. In addition, Minchenko Consulting notes the positive experience of returning "against all" columns in municipal elections in Norilsk. By the way, the holding’s experts estimate the turnout to be “within reason” and “without extremes.”
At the same time, political scientists consider the main lesson of the municipal campaign in Moscow "drying turnout". If there is a campaign by an opponent targeting an ideologically charged and motivated group of voters, such technology can lead to unpredictable results. " Let me note that exactly the same lesson could have been learned from the 2013 mayoral campaign. But they didn’t extract him,” reports the telegram channel "Politburo 2.0".
The past elections in Moscow, in the assessment of many experts, appeared as "arid and abnormally quiet", and direct participants in the election campaign from the opposition announced a “conscious decrease in turnout” on the part of the mayor’s office and the Moscow City Election Commission. Such mechanisms for minimizing turnout, which were partly tested in Moscow, can be used in the election campaign next spring, he suggested in a commentary Nakanune.RU Director of the Center for Political Science Research of the Financial University Pavel Salin.
He highlighted several points that were tested in the current regional elections and "can be used in the spring next year, if the dynamics of mass protest activity do not change."
"First of all, it's running in mechanism for legitimizing election results. Until July, the mechanism that the Presidential Administration relied on was one: the higher the turnout, the higher the level of legitimacy of the elections,” - he said. However, over the past two months, the “attitude” has changed, according to the new formula: “low, low turnout is not an indicator of the legitimacy of the elections.” "The most important indicator is the absence of serious intra-elite conflicts. That is, the most important selection that a candidate must go through is not the electoral one, but the selection among the elite. In this case, the elections should be referendum nature and confirm the choice of the elite," commented Saleen.
This is what happened, for example, in the gubernatorial elections, when candidates who could concentrate the support of counter-elites were removed from the elections. This manifested itself, first of all, in the Sverdlovsk region and Buryatia. “This is probably how the presidential campaign will be structured if Vladimir Putin... The authorities came to a strategic decision that, despite the growing demand for change in society, the risks of implementing such requests exceed the risks of maintaining the status quo. After the presidential elections, in particular, this will be projected onto the electoral campaign. For such a mechanism to be successful, it is necessary to minimize turnout in elections major cities with that so that rural areas and national republics make a certain contribution to the result of the candidate from power,” - the political scientist expressed his opinion.
That is, the “trend”, partly reflected in the elections on September 10, is minimizing turnout with the aim of subsequently legitimizing the election results. "But there is one here big problem, it seems to me that the Kremlin understands her. It is impossible to automatically apply the mechanisms for legitimizing elections at the regional and municipal levels to the mechanism for presidential elections. Our population’s attitude towards governors, especially towards municipal deputies, is one, but the attitude towards the president is different. It may very well be that these mechanisms will not work as effectively as they do today, even if nothing changes,” - Saleen added.
The Moscow City Hall, of course, “ruined the image of the elections,” since “there is a well-established opinion that they deliberately disrupted the elections,” says Member of the Public Chamber Sergei Markov. At the same time, he noted that the municipal elections in Moscow were almost the only campaign of interest abroad. Otherwise, in the West, in his opinion, there is no interest in these elections, since “they are absolutely sure that all the governors will win with a huge gap. "So all this is happening, everything has the character of a referendum", - he thinks.
The opposition traditionally points out the shortcomings of the past election campaign. The parliamentary systemic opposition declares the need changes to the electoral system, and those who are not connected, according to some political scientists, by a “parliamentary cartel”, even talk about the obvious failure of the vote.
So, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Economics Nikita Isaev called the elections “disgusting and disastrous.” “The presidential campaign is starting. If these elections were tested as an understanding of what the reaction to this would be in the world or in Russia, it is obvious that this is a failure... There is an absolute loss of public confidence in the electoral system. It doesn’t matter what level - municipal, regional or gubernatorial... Good , that they held such disgusting elections so that the next ones would not be so", - he stated.
The Vice Speaker of the State Duma made more “milder” criticism Olga Epifanova. She noted a significant “culturalization” of campaigning, but pointed out a number of problems in municipal elections. In particular, the deputy from A Just Russia did not agree with the thesis about the smaller role of “administrative resources” in these elections.
“Any administrative pressure that is applied to people makes the elections even more dark. People are already tired, people are indifferent, they have a clear, stereotypical opinion that nothing depends on them, and this opinion, multiplied by the testimony of friends, that they are being persecuted and forced to vote, makes them forget about voting, as if it were a shock,” Epifanova commented.
She called “postponing voting day to September” a big mistake. “People want to get the last rays of the sun, cook something, communicate with nature,” - the deputy emphasized. In her opinion, holding elections in March would be optimal. She also added that people are “insanely annoyed” by the lack of “counts against everyone”.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is also confident that the country will face “profanation” in the presidential elections if adjustments to the electoral legislation are not adopted. “We are working for the future, but the authorities must clearly understand that with such a turnout, with such approaches to electoral legislation, with the reluctance to change the political rules that have been established, there will be no serious success either in the presidential elections or in others. It will simply be profanation ", - stated Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Yuri Afonin.
Political scientists, by the way, believe that the current elections will be another a serious challenge for the Communist Party.“If the information about the “third place” of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is confirmed, this will be a serious challenge for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. This will be the second point. The first is the parliamentary elections, the results of which for them can be regarded as unsuccessful. The Communists made a strategic mistake several years ago when they did not update the party leadership, because the party leadership needs it that way, and the authorities find such leadership of pensioners without ambition convenient,” - commented Nakanune.RU Pavel Salin.
In his opinion, if the Communist Party of the Russian Federation takes “third place” based on the results of the elections, this “increases the likelihood that it will not be Zyuganov, but his potential successor, who will be the communist candidate for the presidential election.” “There is no other way, otherwise the party will give up on itself,” - added the expert.
The LDPR supports the idea of postponing the elections to the spring. As noted State Duma deputy Mikhail Degtyarev, the low turnout in most regions in the elections on September 10, 2017 showed “the attitude of people towards these elections.”
“If we talk about the gubernatorial elections, then, judging by the results, they were successful and were of a referendum type. Obviously, that municipal filter", which exists, the design that was organized by the Presidential Administration and the internal political bloc made it possible to create a campaign that led to results where both 70 and 80% vote for governors," - said the parliamentarian.
In his opinion, “we can safely put question of returning the appointment of governors after such a campaign." “The only bearer of legitimate power is the president, his word, his support for his nominees gives such a result in any region of the country", - said Degtyarev.
"Close to the Kremlin" political scientist Andrey Kolyadin considers the campaign a “good rehearsal” for the upcoming presidential elections. "If we talk about presidential elections, then there always comes more people. This is a very correct training that will allow the next elections to be held fairly,” the political scientist summarized during Election Night.
Let us remind you that elections at different levels were held in Russia on September 10 in 82 of 85 regions of Russia. The exceptions were St. Petersburg, Ingushetia and the Magadan region. In total, during 5.8 thousand election campaigns at the regional and municipal levels, about 36.7 thousand mandates will be replaced.
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Illustration copyright Alexander Ryumin/TASS Image caption Ballot boxes remained half empty in most polling stations.
On September 10, residents of 16 regions elected governors - in some areas elections of heads are being held for the first time in the last 15 years. In other regions, deputies to regional and local parliaments were elected. In Moscow, deputies to municipal assemblies were elected. In total, campaigns of various levels took place in 82 regions of Russia.
In 15 of the 16 regions where gubernatorial elections were held, turnout was lower than in the previous similar elections. Exception - Sverdlovsk region, but the difference is expressed in one and a half percent. In 2017, 33.47% voted in the gubernatorial elections, in 2003 - 32.07%.
Even in those regions and republics where governors have not been elected for 14-17 years, voters did not vote very actively.
Residents of Mordovia set a record for activity - 71% of voters voted. Mordovia is famous for its abnormally active voting; the percentage of those who came to the polls is always above the national average. But the number of voters in the elections for the head of the republic now turned out to be lower than in the Duma elections of 2016 and in the previous gubernatorial elections in 2003. In previous years, 83% of voters voted there.
The anti-record was set by voters in Karelia and the Tomsk region - there, according to preliminary data, 23.5% and 22.56% voted, respectively.
On average, the preliminary turnout in the gubernatorial elections in 16 regions on September 10 was 35.39%.
According to preliminary data, there is no chance of an opposition candidate winning in any region; a second round is also not expected anywhere.
“This day was very favorable for our party,” said the leader of United Russia, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. “But the most important thing is still ahead - and for the highest officials subjects of the federation, that is, governors who were elected today, and for deputies at various levels."
No appearance required
In Moscow, about one and a half thousand deputies to municipal councils were elected. These elections were important for both the authorities and the opposition, since the nomination of candidates for the election of a candidate for mayor of Moscow in 2018 depends on the signatures of municipal deputies.
Opposition candidates nominated themselves for these elections. To counter them, the Moscow mayor's office decided to hide information about the elections from voters, the Vedomosti newspaper wrote. The Moscow authorities really hardly informed the townspeople about the upcoming elections, correspondents of the BBC Russian Service, the failure of the campaign to inform the townspeople about the elections was also recognized by the Central Election Commission.
As a result, voter turnout in municipal elections in Moscow as of 18:00 Moscow time was 12.1%. Local elections traditionally attract little attention, but even at the local level this is a rather low result. For comparison, more than 21% of voters voted for deputies of the Moscow City Duma in 2014.
“Nobody fought for turnout this time,” Andrei Kolyadin, head of regional programs at the Expert Institute for Social Research (IESI), close to the Kremlin, explained to the BBC. “Whereas before one of the main principles was pumping up turnout until limit level, then now at all meetings, conferences, meetings with the authorities they said that the main thing is the most fair elections, without vote theft and falsification.”
In Moscow, the turnout turned out to be too dry, admits Kolyadin. “Probably, the Moscow authorities had plans for everything to go quietly and for their own people to pass, for whom they would calmly vote with the help of mobilization. I don’t know how much this worked out, it all depends on how those 12 percent who came voted,” says the political scientist.
Political scientist, expert of the Committee of Civil Initiatives Alexander Kynev says that an artificial decrease in turnout leads to discrediting the authorities and reduces its legitimacy: “In a normal election campaign, there is no other way to increase turnout other than agitation and intrigue.” The summer-autumn campaign of 2017 showed that “there can be no future with this system,” Kynev noted. According to him, the elections took place according to an inertial scenario; no one wanted to take risks. “The question of changing the rules of the game will inevitably arise,” the political scientist concluded.
These are the last ones major elections ahead of the 2018 presidential campaign. Russians were almost not interested in the previous federal elections for State Duma deputies, and the turnout did not reach 50%.
After this, the Kremlin became concerned about voter turnout in the upcoming presidential elections, and the current campaign was supposed to become a small rehearsal for the presidential elections: the authorities developed several ways to attract the electorate to the elections, including applications in the Mamba dating service, messages in Internet aggregators, and so on.
Putin himself has not yet announced his plans for 2018, but few doubt his intentions. Russian media write that the Kremlin would like to turn the elections into a referendum on confidence in Putin. The RBC publication reported that the deputy head of the Kremlin administration for domestic policy Sergei Kiriyenko sets the goal of getting 70% of the votes for Putin with a turnout of the same 70%.
“Presidential elections always take place with a higher turnout, and the head of state is treated as the most effective authority,” Kolyadin noted. “It is extremely important that in their desire to serve the territory they do not begin to drive various state employees to the polling stations under pain of execution and death.” In his opinion, the September 10 rehearsal can be considered normal from this point of view.
The elections on September 10 put an end to both the Kremlin’s last illusions that the majority of the population is for United Russia, and the hypotheses that social tension has reached its limit and revolutionary sentiments are in the air in society.
WINNERS - KREMLIN APPOINTMENTS
The outcome of the gubernatorial elections was predetermined even before one day voting in the Kremlin, which replaced a number of ineffective governors in advance and appointed temporary ones (Table 1). It was these interims who became the only recognizable political figures in the region. The people traditionally voted for those whose names were well known. And as always, I voted not for merit, but in advance. This is exactly how Russians will have to vote in the presidential elections: not for merit - the May decrees as election promises have failed, the economy is in recession, the country is isolated, they will vote for new promises in the hope that this time they will definitely be fulfilled.
As can be seen from Table 1, the absolute majority was given to the acting governor.
The political advantages of interim officials before the elections are obvious: as a rule, they have little time to establish themselves as corrupt officials or appointees indifferent to the region. Unlike opposition candidates, their names are already well-known, although literally a year before the elections they were completely unknown to their voters, since almost all of them have nothing to do with the region of which they were appointed governors. But the current governors had a more difficult time. Like the Russian president, they had to solve some of the problems of their voters in a revealing manner. For example, in Tomsk, and let me remind you that the current governor of the Tomsk region was Zhilkin, the grand opening of water supply networks took place on Shpalnaya and Stroevaya streets. People finally got speakers installed on their streets in the 21st century. Now they don’t have to wait for delivery, they can get water on the street! And the supply to the house is already independent.
What can I say, a large-scale event for a country that is building a digital economy, plans to be a leader in the field of artificial intelligence, and has long imagined itself as a technologically advanced country thanks to Rusnano and Skolkovo.
MOSCOW PHENOMENON
In Moscow, municipal deputies were elected, whose votes are necessary for the future candidate for mayor of the capital to pass the municipal filter. The peculiarity of the elections in Moscow is that they tried to make them invisible, not to attract special attention to them. And the city day turned out to be more opportune than ever. All the conversations on the eve of the elections were not about voting day, but about City Day, about planned events. As a result, the turnout in the elections was only 14.8%. As is known, fraud in elections with low turnout is more simple task than in high turnout elections. That is, they decided to put the capital to sleep, taking into account the growing sympathy for Navalny and other liberal oppositionists. However, even despite the low turnout, the opposition was able to achieve noticeable results: the Yabloko party took second place, gaining 11.72% of the votes. The party in power gained 76%. These results allowed the chairman of the Yabloko party to conclude that “Russians want change. And the moment will come when this process will become irreversible and this will be the beginning of a serious renewal in the country.”
This year’s elections in the capital are reminiscent of the results of the 2016 State Duma elections, when United Russia there was a constitutional majority - over 75% of the votes. The party in power received 1,154 parliamentary seats, Yabloko representatives - 176 seats, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation - 43 seats (previously there were 212), Just Russia- 10, LDPR - 4. This situation suggests that Moscow realized that the Duma opposition is a prolongation of the United Russia policy, so it relied on the force that is still demonstrating its opposition to the regime.
Based on the voting results, it must be stated that in 2018, when the candidate from the mayor will have to pass the municipal filter, collecting 6% of the signatures of local deputies and enlisting the support of at least three quarters municipalities, that is, in no less than 110 municipalities, only Sobyanin will be able to pass. The remaining parties, even united, will not be able to enlist the support of 110 municipalities. Apple is represented in 51 entities, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation - in 22, and self-nominated candidates - in 12. That is, despite the small victory of the opposition, we have to admit that the current government clearly won, and the results of the 2018 elections in Moscow are again a foregone conclusion.
DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW
The authorities and society have different assessments of the processes taking place in the country. Power structures see elections competition. As Pamfilova reported a month before the elections: “The President very clearly set the task: elections must be as transparent and legitimate as possible, first of all, elections must be recognized by our citizens, they must believe in them.” The turnout of 14.8% in the elections in Moscow and in some other regions is precisely an indicator that Russians have stopped believing in the elections. They stopped hoping that their voice could change anything. The Kremlin, represented by Peskov, believes that the elections, on the contrary, are competitive: “there is pluralism, and there is political competition.” However, the victory of United Russia with 76% of the vote against 11% from the opposition speaks of a monopoly, not competition.
As for low turnout, a painful topic for the Central Election Commission on the eve of the presidential elections, where turnout should be increased to 70%, Pamfilova refused to comment, and member of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation A. Klyukin, in turn, noted that “the turnout is good” in Moscow. Passivity and indifference of society, indifference to the problems of one's own city - is this a good turnout?
The authorities decided to fight the falsifications immediately, but not by eliminating them, but by discrediting the very fact of possible falsification, thereby presenting it as a kind of stupid curiosity, and not a political order influencing the course of the elections. The media circulated a case from Pamfilova’s words, when a voter who came said that someone had already voted for him early, but during the proceedings it turned out that the applicant himself cast his vote. The person who voted tried to escape, citing his forgetfulness. With this story, Pamfilova discredited in advance all subsequent stuffing of facts into the media, when a voter’s vote was cast without the participation of the voter himself. She also tried to divert the attention of the media from the facts of violations that observers noted to isolated cases of inappropriate behavior of the observers themselves: the removal of a “drunk as hell” observer from a polling station in the Kaliningrad region, the removal of a Yabloko candidate who had bitten members of the PEC. Pamfilova was not the only one who tried to discredit cases of falsification.
The head of the Moscow City Election Commission announced that the recording posted on the Internet, where the deputy head of the Novo-Peredelkino council discusses with members of district election commissions how to rig elections, is a planned provocation and montage. However, the head of the Novo-Peredelkino council was fired. But how many other such compassionate leaders were there in Russia, whose plans no one ever found out about?
In general, enough violations were identified; the leaders were Moscow, the Saratov region and Krasnodar region. Typical violations include refusals to allow observers, fake observers, a ban on filming, attempts to register “incomprehensible people without passports,” a large number of applications for ballot boxes, and illegal campaigning. However, according to the CEC, there were no critical violations during the elections. In a word, the Central Election Commission worked like Rosstat - the expected indicators were achieved.
But he distinguished himself most Altai region, where the level of early voting in the Barnaul Duma is calculated in percentages, while throughout the country it is in fractions of percentages. With a turnout of 17%, the level of early voting in the Barnaul Duma was one third. What will the local authorities come up with, whose task is to ensure the victory of the party in power, unpopular among the people, at any cost.
Society is tired of the fact that the outcome of the elections is predetermined and there is virtually no one to vote for, so they naturally vote with their feet - refusing to come to the polls. The turnout at the gubernatorial elections in a number of regions was only a third, or even less, of voters. When compared with the elections to the State Duma, although it must be admitted that for the regions the gubernatorial elections more important than elections deputies to the Duma, then out of 16 regions the turnout increased in only two ( Perm region and Buryatia), and fell in the rest (Fig. 1). This is largely due to the fact that the people are aware that the elections of governors have already been decided, and victory will go to the one appointed by the Kremlin.
Rice. 1. Turnout in the gubernatorial elections in 2017 and in the elections in State Duma 2016
Russians have lost faith that their vote decides something, that the chosen candidate will certainly fulfill his obligations. Low turnout is still a passive protest. But as you know, in Russia they tolerate it for a long time. But when patience runs out, the Russian revolt occurs. And while the authorities are introducing new levies - resort fees, increasing excise taxes on gasoline, planning to introduce recycling fee on shoes and other “air taxes”, the patience of the impoverished Russian may come to an end.
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