Single voting day in Russia during the war. Results – briefly
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In Russia, the next voting day ended on Sunday (in some regions, elections lasted three days). The 2022 campaign turned out to be unusual, although by the fact that it took place against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There were no surprises, as in the gubernatorial elections in 2018 or the municipal elections in Moscow in 2017 – candidates from the authorities, according to the choice of values, prevailed in almost all regions. BBC sums up the results of these elections.
Kremlin Candidates Deserve Gubernatorial Elections
As a result, the voting day for governors was chosen in 15 regions. In one of them, Adygea, the elections were indirect – there the deputies of the State Council unanimously re-elected Murat Kumpilov to the post of United Russia.
In other cases, as predicted by the BBC, there were no surprises, and acting or interim (acting) governors, sticking to the Kremlin, managed to win in the first round in direct elections. Most of them got 70% or even 80% of the votes.
The first place according to the results of processing 100% of the votes was taken by the candidates of United Russia: Governor of Buryatia Alexei Tsydenov (86.23% of votes), Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuyvashev (65.78%), Novgorod Region Andrey Nikitin (77.03%), Kaliningrad Region Anton region (80.21%), head of Karelia Arthur Parfenchikov (69.15%), Udmurtia Alexander Brechalov (64.37%), acting governor of the Saratov region Roman Busargin (72.55%), Vladimir region Alexander Avdeev (83, 68%), Kirov region Alexander Sokolov (71.85%), Tambov region Maxim Egorov (84.95%), Ryazan region Pavel Malkov (84.55%), Tomsk region Vladimir Mazur (84.94%).
In addition, two self-nominated candidates who held the positions of heads of regional presidents by Vladimir Putin won the election – Acting Deputy of Mari El Yuri Zaitsev (82.44%) and Acting Governor of the Yaroslavl Region Mikhail Evraev (82.31%).
In six Russian regions – North Ossetia, Krasnodar Territory, Udmurtia, as well as Penza, Saratov and Sakhalin Regions – as a result of voting, deputies representing parliaments were elected. In all of them, “United Russia” received, according to the officially announced figures, the majority.
Political scientist Alexander Kynev, in a conversation with Vedomosti, took place on the phenomena of a decline in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the regions – in his opinion, this happened against the backdrop of “patriotic consolidation” that went into the hands of the authorities: in advance, those who voted from protest moods preferred vote for other parties.”
As the BBC observed, in fact, against the background of the war in Ukraine and in the conditions of repression, no full-fledged campaign was conducted in any of the regions. The Golos movement (proclaimed in Russia a “foreign agent”) is an observation that has seen nothing credible in 22 years of election observation.
The monitoring carried out by the movement showed that the media almost did not write about the campaign and only about the work of the governors. They were mentioned 9.5 times higher than all other participants in the meetings.
The head of the CEC of Russia, Ella Pamfilova, called the intake part lively and competitive, “but rather calm in the good sense of the word.”
Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin regards the results of the elections as a cut of Russians’ attitudes towards military operations in Ukraine: “This shows a high level of support and powers of the head, and makes decisions.”
In Moscow, the opposition complains about the DEG and the violation
Special attention was riveted to municipal elections in Moscow, although these are elections at the local level, and municipal deputies do not have much authority – it was taken into account that the opposition electorate is concentrated in Moscow.
A similar campaign in 2017 led to the fact that many oppositionists appeared in the councils of deputies, and representativeness disappeared in some regions of United Russia.
This time, the results of the opposition are much more modest – the candidates themselves attribute this to pressure and refuse the remote choice (DEG), which is used this year in Moscow and in several other regions.
As the BBC preferred, many opposition candidates were not allowed to participate in the elections or were removed from them after registration – often part 1 of Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (public demonstration of prohibited symbols). In the footsteps in the deputies over the past months, dozens of protocols – most often for symbols or simply for recalling “Smart Voting”, a project of Alexei Navalny’s team.
In total, more than 1.4 emotions were played in Moscow this year. Opposition representation will be reduced in at least several oceans.
For example, in the Tverskoy District, following the results of the 2017 campaign, out of 12 United Russia seats, only one got, and 10 were given to candidates nominated with the support of Yabloko. This year, according to the results of the data of the Moscow City Electoral Commission at six in the morning, United Russia took 11 out of 12 messages. The only person who seems to have focused on keeping it alive was self-nominated Ketevan Kharaidze, who was arrested last year for fraud.
In the Akademichesky district of Moscow, not a single United Russia member managed to get into the Council of Deputies in the last elections. This year, according to preliminary data, 11 mandates out of 12 outgoing representatives of “United Russia” and in compliance with the Moscow structures of the “My District” movement.
In total, out of 1,416 mandates, United Russia and My District got 1,294 mandates, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation – 42, 20 each – by New People and Just Russia, 11 – by the Liberal Democratic Party, 3 – by Yabloko, and one more – “Communists of Russia”. 26 seats were taken by self-nominated candidates. For comparison: according to the results of the 2017 campaign, Yabloko had 176 messages, and self-nominated candidates had 108.
Many independent observers and candidates are part of the three-day election system, which are required to conduct observation and remote electronic voting (DEV).
The opposition was activated by the DEG for its lack of transparency last year in the elections to the State Duma, while many independent nominees were in the lead according to the results of the vote count, according to polling stations, but ultimately were nominated as administrative candidates according to the results of the DEG.
In a probable situation, many candidates have also happened this year.
The DEG noticed an increased turnout in the elections. If in 2017 14.8% of voters voted in Moscow, this year it has doubled to 33.9%. In total, less than 700 thousand Muscovites came to the polling stations, and more than 1.7 million voted online. In the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, for example, even on the first day of the elections, it is believed that these results are exaggerated and draw attention to the fact that state employees demand to vote electronically.
The system itself has not always worked smoothly. Pamfilova claims that more than 300 hacker attacks were detected on September 10-11 in seven regions on the territory of the DEG. And Moscow’s election observation headquarters announced 10,000 attacks on the metropolitan system in three days of voting. Due to failures, some voters were unable to receive ballots at the polling stations, as the system confirmed that they had already voted electronically – among them was the head of the “Fair Russia” Sergei Mironov.
The opposition claims violations, the CEC says everything is fine
According to the results of the elections in Moscow, according to the opposition, detections and violations.
“We can say that they uncovered it in Moscow in 2011. The scale of falsifications surpassed all conceivable and unthinkable parameters. The rewriting of protocols began again, about which we had not heard for a long time. [власти] jumped out of their pants,” says Navalny’s associate Leonid Volkov (included in the register of individuals-“foreign agents”).
Data on possible deviations from the norm is collected by the “Voice” movement. It reported that among the leading regions there were such events as Moscow, Krasnodar Territory, Udmurtia, Moscow and Kirov regions. Among such cases, according to Golos, observers recorded pressure on observers from the police and the commission, as well as problems with home voting.
According to the human rights project OVD-Info (included in the register of non-profit organizations as “foreign agents”), at least 30 people were detained throughout Russia in connection with the elections, including nine investigators, six observers and three members of election election commissions.
Pamfilova joked that the point-of-view campaign was even “boring”. According to her, as of evening 11, 218 ballots were declared invalid in September September in Moscow, Udmurtia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Kemerovo, Moscow and Novosibirsk Regions. “This, of course, is an insignificant amount on a national scale,” she said.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that eight criminal cases arising from the elections were initiated, although, as a customs, “violations, ways of influencing the elections, were not affected.”
At the end of April, a month after the start of the second day in Ukraine, Russian media reported on the possible cancellation of elections in September. However, the authorities decided that this was not necessary. The election came amid reports of a massive Ukrainian counter-offensive in the southern country.