Election update VIII. Preparations for the Unified Election Day 2024 have started
26.04.2024
In its regular Electoral Bulletin [1], a digest with news about Russian elections (all issues in Russian are available here), the Movement in Defense of Voter’s Rights ’Golos’ discusses the preparations of authorities for the regional elections of 2024.
In September, elections are scheduled for 13 regional legislatures, including Crimea and Sevastopol. At least 16 governors, including head of St. Petersburg, are to be elected. Should a governor resign in any region before 8 June, elections will also be held there.
United Russia is preparing to nominate ‘veterans’ of the war in Ukraine for regional parliaments, even though they are not popular among voters. However, voter turnout is a secondary concept in the Russian electoral system. This is partly because in many opposition-minded regions, remote electronic voting (REV) is planned to be used, which will help increase voter turnout and ‘adjust’ the results. By this point, 24 regions have already announced their intention to use REV in the September 2024 elections.
Meanwhile, Russia's political party system continues to gradually decline, with larger parties absorbing smaller ones. Could it be that history is also moving backward - back to one-party dominance?
In this review, we recap the most significant election-related events of March and April 2024.
1. United Russia is trying to push 'veterans' of the war into regional parliaments
Russia is preparing for the ‘elections’ in early September. On the Unified Election Day, new members of the Moscow City Duma, deputies of regional legislatures and governors will be elected in many regions.
Russian opposition has embarked on the preparations for these elections in advance. Initially, the unregistered anti-war presidential candidate, Ekaterina Duntsova, announced the formation of a pre-election coalition. Subsequently, so-called ‘foreign agents’ announced their intention to nominate candidates to all 45 electoral districts in the capital.
Meanwhile, the authorities are also preparing. A bill to ban ‘foreign agents’ from being elected was introduced in the State Duma and then withdrawn for revision. Additionally, the ruling party United Russia has started putting together party primaries. It turned out that the participants of the war in Ukraine are so unpopular among voters that special conditions had to be created for them. The share of winning ‘veterans’ in the primaries has been so minor that the authorities had decided to help them win the competition by significantly changing the rules of the game. Now, each ‘veteran’ will automatically receive an additional 25% of the votes to their result.
The necessity of introducing such a measure remains unclear. This rule is likely to bring to regional legislatures quite a few random and unpopular candidates with no political experience. Let alone the fact that a number of them are likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which could potentially have a negative impact on their decisions.
The United Russia primaries will take place from 21 to 26 March. During this time, the party's candidates for the fall elections should be determined. The election race is to start in June.
2. The Ministry in Chechnya openly admitted in its official report to coercing voters to participate in the presidential elections
The Ministry for National Policy, Press, and Information of the Chechen Republic confessed in its official report that it engaged in pressuring voters to participate in the presidential elections. The report mentioned that the Ministry received a ‘turnout plan’ - it was supposed to send 605 people from its subordinate organizations to polling stations daily, which amounts to 1815 over the three days of voting. The Ministry reported that they sent 1902 employees to polling stations, overfulfilling ‘the plan’ by 5%. The report also detailed which specific polling stations hundreds of journalists from Chechen television companies and news agencies were sent to vote to.
The Golos Movement emphasizes that coercing individuals to vote is a direct violation of the law, for which the leadership of the ministry should be dismissed, and criminal proceedings should be initiated against Minister Dudaev.
3. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) conducted an investigation into the actions of its officers during the voting days. The department stated that the secrecy of the vote can be violated.
On 17 March 2024, at a polling station in St. Petersburg, police officers forcibly removed a voter from the voting booth and demanded to show them their ballot. Boris Vishnevsky, a regional parliament deputy from the Yabloko party, demanded an official investigation into the actions of law enforcement officers.
In the response received by Vishnevsky, the Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that no violations were found during the investigation. “It has been established that the police officers ensuring the safety of citizens and public order at the polling station (PEC) No. 1136 acted in strict accordance with the requirements of the Federal Law 'On Police' and within the framework of the current legislation of the Russian Federation, and did not exceed their official powers or violate the rights of citizens”, the document says.
4. The party system in Russia is gradually dying out. New People absorbed the Party of Growth, while the merger of the Party of Business with the LDPR is being discussed.
Last week, the party New People absorbed the Party of Growth. However, formally, the Party of Growth simply ceased to exist. It is possible that in the near future a similar fate awaits the Party of Business, which the Ministry of Justice has been trying to liquidate for several months now. Its absorption by the LDPR is being discussed.
Over the past 10 years, the number of registered parties in Russia has decreased roughly threefold. Existing parties are also experiencing bad times, as evidenced by the election results. Local elections are almost completely ignored by parliamentary parties. For example, over the past 8 months, Russia has held elections for 80 heads of municipalities. The CPRF nominated only three candidates (one won), the New People nominated two (both lost), Just Russia nominated 10 (all lost), and the LDPR nominated 43 (two won). Only three non-parliamentary parties (the Party of Pensioners, the Political Party of Social Protection and the Party of Russia's Rebirth) nominated candidates.
The decline in the number of parties and the weakening of their activity signals that the party system reflects less and less the real preferences of citizens.
5. More and more regions pursue REV
Even Chechnya, a traditionally conservative region, has submitted an application for the use of REV in elections. This appears somewhat odd as no elections above the local level are planned in Chechnya on the Unified Election Day in September 2024.
Some Telegram channels speculated about this as a sign of unscheduled elections in Chechnya, which may be required because the current head of the region, Ramzan Kadyrov, might be unable to fulfill his duties due to his illness. However, this information has not been confirmed by official sources.
A total of 24 regions are currently planning to use remote electronic voting. These regions are Moscow, Altai Republic, Republic of Karelia, Komi Republic, Chechen Republic, Chuvash Republic – Chuvashia, Altai Krai, Kamchatka Krai, Perm Krai, Primorsky Krai, Arkhangelsk region, Vologda region, Kostroma region, Kursk region, Lipetsk region, Moscow region, Murmansk region, Pskov region, Sverdlovsk region, Tomsk region, Chelyabinsk region, Yaroslavl region, Sevastopol and Nenets Autonomous District.
[1] All Electoral Bulletin issues are available on the following website (in Russian): https://www.bulleten.org/
