Kremlin plans to reelect Alexander Beglov as governor of St. Petersburg
30.07.2024
At the beginning of September 2024, Vladimir Putin’s hometown will elect its governor. Most likely, it will again be the Kremlin protege Alexander Beglov.
Internal documents of the Presidential Administration obtained by journalists from “Vot tak” indicate that the entire election campaign is managed from a single center, and Beglov’s rivals are carefully selected spoiler candidates who have no chance of winning.
“Vot tak” reveals how the Kremlin came up with the idea and how it is running a campaign of spoiler candidates that costs 166 million rubles (approximately 1.8 million US dollars).
REM publishes an abridged version of the investigation by “Vot tak” (in Russian).
WHO IS ALEXANDER BEGLOV?
Alexander Beglov was born in Baku (Azerbaijan) and studied in Leningrad. He began his career as an official in one of the city's districts before moving to the government of St. Petersburg. In 2003, he served as executive governor during the election period of then-Governor Valentina Matviyenko. Afterward, Beglov worked in the Presidential Administration and later served as the Presidential representative to the Central Federal District. In 2018, he returned to St. Petersburg as a gubernatorial candidate and served in this position for nearly six years.
In the spring of 2024, there were rumors that Beglov might be dismissed, but at the end of April Vladimir Putin endorsed Alexander Beglov for a second term as governor. Officially, Beglov was registered as a candidate for governor of St. Petersburg on 8 July by the United Russia party.
SPOILER CANDIDATES
In addition to Beglov, three more individuals have become candidates for governor of St. Petersburg – Pavel Bragin, Sergey Malinkovich, and Maxim Yakovlev. According to a document obtained by "Vot Tak" journalists (see the original article), a legend has been made up for each spoiler candidate.
Pavel Bragin (Green Party) is portrayed as an "active citizen and eco-activist interested in a better future for the city, ready to address issues that concern people".
Sergey Malinkovich (Communists of Russia) is depicted as a "prodigal son" of Leningrad who returned to his hometown to reconnect with its roots and continue to defend the interests of the city's residents in accordance with the ideals of a true communist.
Maxim Yakovlev (LDPR) is described as an "experienced party member, the voice of LDPR in the St. Petersburg governor elections, intending to seek revenge for the 2019 elections where LDPR did not field a candidate".
After presenting the bios of each of the three spoiler candidates, the document outlines their tasks in the 2024 election campaign.
The first task is to achieve a low voter turnout. This means that in order for the main candidate - Alexander Beglov - to win, as few residents of St. Petersburg as possible should turn up to vote on the main voting day, 8 September.
It is believed that on the main day, the protest electorate tends to vote. If many residents of St. Petersburg come to the polling stations on Sunday, 8 September, the opposition might say, "Look how large the dissatisfied electorate is in St. Petersburg". Therefore, the task likely entails demotivating the protest voter: talking less about the elections and using less remarkable outdoor advertising.
According to Kremlin administrators, the second key factor that features these elections is the high potential for protest in St. Petersburg. The authorities could have drawn this conclusion from closed-door sociology conducted by the Kremlin, active participation of St. Petersburg residents in the campaign to collect signatures for Boris Nadezhdin and the results of the "Noon Against Putin" action on 17 March, when the opposition electorate of St. Petersburg formed lines. Additionally, St. Petersburg residents gathered nearly 7,000 signatures for the anti-war candidate for governor, Lyudmila Vasilyeva, in less than two weeks.
Kremlin political technologists aim to suppress protest activity by evenly distributing votes among spoiler candidates and preventing any of these candidates from accumulating votes.
The third task is to ensure legitimacy of the obtained election results. According to the document's authors, this requires proper crafting of the legends for the candidates and adhering to the standard campaign traditions.
Five main groups of voters have been identified as the candidates' target audience. According to the Kremlin's plan, patriots and loyalists should support Alexander Beglov, progressive electorate - Pavel Bragin from the Green Party, and socialists - Sergey Malinkovich from the Communists of Russia. Those patriots and loyalists who do not support Beglov should lean towards Maxim Yakovlev from the LDPR, according to the strategy outlined in the document.
PREDEFINED CAMPAIGN FORMATS
Kremlin political technologists also put an effort into devising certain formats and topics for the campaigns.
The campaign of Pavel Bragin will be "calm, with a small number of events". Its main thematic areas will be "regulation of the tourist flow, animal protection, environmental issues (unpleasant odors and rats in the city) and urban planning, although without touching on the 'comfortable urban environment' [a topic that can potentially draw a lot of attention to the campaign - REM]". His public activities will include environmental raids at the pre-agreed venues, where "uncontrolled meetings with residents" that could spoil the positive image of Beglov will not be possible.
The campaign of the communist Malinkovich should include "elements of repulsive actionism, against liberals, for true communism and ideals of Leninist Komsomol". As part of his campaign, Malinkovich will organize excursions to Lenin-related sites and post "wild statements online such as "under true communism, things will be different".
Yakovlev has been assigned a "campaign without a candidate" with a remote format of informational presence. Yakovlev's reputation is so controversial that an active campaign would raise questions about his biography (in the 1990s, he was close to St. Petersburg's criminal groups). For that reason, his campaign will focus on the federal LDPR agenda and regional branch events as well as a "civilized approach to labor immigration" — he will publish statements that the city is ready to accept immigrants provided they comply with the law. Yakovlev will not participate in any offline events.
As campaign tools, the candidates will use personal social networks and their party's social media platforms — VKontakte, Odnoklassniki (LDPR) and even the banned Instagram (Green Party). Press releases of their meetings with voters will be published in the media; except for Yakovlev, who will not appear anywhere. For the outdoor advertising in the city with over 7 million population each candidate will be allocated up to 10 billboards — these will not even cover all 18 districts of St. Petersburg.
Spoiler candidates will have campaign leaflets and newspapers prepared, which will be distributed at designated locations near metro stations. Interestingly, the campaign materials for Bragin from the Green Party will be in an unconventional format "à la Davankov" [Vladislav Davankov is a 2024 presidential candidate from the New People party, positioned as the only opposition/anti-war candidate after the Russian CEC decided to deny registration to Ekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin - REM].
Each candidate will have observers on election day "to support legitimacy", according to the strategy developed by the Presidential Administration.
DANGEROUS OPINION LEADERS AND 'WESTERN COUNTER-CAMPAIGN'
The Presidential Administration has also considered the risks associated with the campaigns. Political technologists are concerned about potential criticism from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) towards the candidate from the Communists of Russia (spoiler party) Sergey Malinkovich. As a solution to this problem, it is proposed to counter the CPRF's narrative with statements from Malinkovich in the manner of "these communists are not real, they were afraid to participate in the elections".
The Kremlin is also concerned about the potential lack of control over the spoiler candidates. There is a risk that Malinkovich and Bragin might "undertake unplanned actions" that could harm Beglov's campaign, according to the strategy. To minimize the risk of unplanned initiatives, it has been decided to keep potential troublemakers within the administrative framework and prevent such actions from becoming public. If any unusual event occurs, all city media will be instructed to act as if it never happened.
Apart from that, the city's opinion leaders might also become a problem for the election campaign. It is assumed that the St. Petersburg intelligentsia will not be pleased with the figures of fake candidates on the ballot and may, along with Alexander Beglov's shortcomings, start a public discussion of his spoilers. To solve this problem, the Presidential Administration will strive to prevent “the topic from being actively discussed in the media”.
Another alleged issue for Beglov's administration is the "Western counter-campaign". The Kremlin anticipates that the "liberal and foreign agent infrastructure" will criticize the campaign and question the legitimacy of the elections. As a countermeasure, it is suggested that such material should not be publicized. The document does not specify how Kremlin political technologists might influence Russian media operating abroad.
THE COST OF THE SPOILER CANDIDATES' CAMPAIGN
Last but not least, the document obtained by "Vot Tak" includes a cost estimate of the electoral campaign of spoiler candidates for Alexander Beglov.
The client indicated that it is the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, and the project itself is blatantly titled "Support of spoiler candidates in the elections of the governor of St. Petersburg". The timeframe for implementation is from 15 June to 15 September. The project envisages a team of at least 16 people. This includes a chief technologist, deputy technologist, ideology analyst, three media managers, three SMM specialists, three writers, two lawyers, and two designers. The campaigns will require video production and monitoring.
In total, the expenses for the spoiler candidates' campaigns are estimated at 166 million rubles, approximately 1.8 million USD.
The costs are split into two categories. The first category is "direct expenses", which include media coverage and promotion, campaign printed materials and outdoor advertising, social media and messenger platform operations, picketing campaigns and focus group surveys. This will cost the Presidential Administration 58 million rubles (670 thousand USD).
The second category is the "wage fund". The total expenditure amounts to 43 million rubles (500 thousand USD). The salary for the "chief technologist" who is responsible for managing the project, ensuring strategy execution, working out the risks and interacting with the client (the Presidential Administration), amounts to 2.4 million rubles (29 thousand USD) for three months of work. The campaign's chief technologist, according to the document, is Nikita Setov, one of the leaders of the consulting agency "Polilog". "Polilog" is a major political consulting agency that has long collaborated with the Kremlin. Its revenue exceeded 1 billion rubles (over 11 million USD) in 2023. Specifically, "Polilog" organizes courses for journalists from the puppet DNR and LNR 'republics' on behalf of the Kremlin.
Additionally, the cost estimate includes another 64 million rubles (740 thousand USD) for so-called "black cash". These funds will be used for black PR and expenses that cannot be paid through official channels.
"Vot Tak" requested comments from the press offices of the LDPR, Communist Party of Russia and the Greens regarding the participation of spoiler candidates in the gubernatorial elections of St. Petersburg. No response was received as of publication date. Likewise, the consulting agency "Polilog" ignored the inquiry of the "Vot Tak" journalists.
