On the eve of another fateful election, the head of Russia’s Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, arrived in an area famous for one of the most outrageous elections in modern Russian history. Did you manage to restore confidence in the electoral system, did Pamfilova find the notorious “Ussuriysk fleet” and bastards-falsifiers, and why the gubernatorial elections of 2023 should affect the presidential elections, in the material TELMENEWS.RU
Primorye is considered a politically complex region. The region has had electoral surprises since the mid-1990s – either they will elect the bad ones or they will suddenly imprison those who have been approved at the top. By the way, Sergei Darkin, who led the subject for almost 3 consecutive terms, was also not an agreed candidate or “Kremlin man” in his first elections. However, the 2018 gubernatorial elections proved to be the most outrageous, when dispatched political technologists slapped all the new election technology invented in Moscow and literally had the whole country on edge. Moreover, the “high-class” specialists who were supposed to help elect the generally passable acting governor Andrei Tarasenko managed to frame even the president. Literally on the eve of the elections, Putin traditionally came to the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, where he “blessed” Tarasenko, expressing his confidence in his victory.
However, even with such a powerful karmic message, the actor still could not defeat the candidate of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Andrei Ishchenko in the first round, and in the second he completely lost to him. But the morning after the end of the vote, the figures of GAS “Vybory” showed an ordinary miracle, and the representative of United Russia unexpectedly took the lead. Thanks to the “most transparent electoral system in the world”, everyone has seen it. An unexpected wave of voices caused a storm of indignation and the Communists were able to bring the people to the square in front of the government building. At that time, it was not possible to call it “the intrigues of the West”, there was simply no one – the political strategists were already sitting on their suitcases and ready to leave the region with their honestly earned fees.
The election results had to be annulled, which seriously undermined the credibility of the election institution in Primorye. It was Ella Pamfilova who had to bear the brunt of the first high-profile scandal with the new high-tech system. Her reaction to what happened in Primorye was invaluable: at first the official explained the anomaly in the calculations to the “Ussuriisk fleet” – according to the CEC, 100% turnout in some polling stations in Ussuriysk was due to the fact that these were stations on small ships. There, according to Pamfilova, the whole crew voted. When told that there was no sea in Ussuriysk, the head of the CEC announced tampering and jamming, on both sides, then burst into tears.
“You know how insulting it was – they took and crossed out all the work. Everything is transparent, we take it step by step. And suddenly, once – and such a blow in the stomach, ”said she declared.
Moscow accused regional and municipal authorities of using administrative resources, communists – of seizing the Soviet TEC and promised to punish everyone.
“We will prepare serious documents to appeal to the prosecution, to the commission of inquiry … It is very important to identify and punish not the traffickers who are forced to commit violations, but the organizers of these crimes, I’m not afraid of the word, criminal. Of course it hurts me. These scoundrels and scoundrels who organize falsifications for their own profit, they give people a reason to say: “Yes, we know how they think! Yes , we know how our elections are going! They undermine people’s faith. And people stop going to the polls,” said Ella Pamfilova.
It should be noted that, despite threats to punish the perpetrators, no criminal case has been opened. Even the personnel of the Primorsky Election Commission did not undergo serious changes after the outrageous elections, and all participants in these events found their place in the Primorye authorities. Oleg Kozhemyako, an experienced governor, came to save the day and, largely thanks to his personal charisma and the support of the federal center, managed to turn the situation around. However, the theses expressed by Pamfilova about undermining people’s faith have long formed the electoral image of the region in the eyes of Moscow.
This year, in September, the head of the region will be re-elected in Primorye, and, obviously, Kozhemyako is the number 1 candidate. But this time the thesis is actively promoted that not only the seat of the governor is at stake, but also the presidential election – “a day of voting in September should be the foundation, the principal of the 2024 campaign”, underlined the head of the Central Election Commission.
In regional quasi-political circles there is an opinion that the reason for the electoral collapse in 2018 was the lack of professionalism of the Tarasenko team and an attempt to save money on the election campaign, by withdrawing only at the expense of the administration Resource. At that time, it was a fairly common mistake among pro-government candidates in many parts of the country.
Someone who was directly involved in the process also speaks of a deliberate flight of the candidate from the Kremlin. It was obvious that coping with the protest vote effortlessly was not easy. Experts agree that the Communists, in their traditional vein, managed to rack up the protest, and after the 2018 pension reform it was particularly strong.
It is now clear that the protest vote did not bode well for the region in the future – imagine for a moment that Andrei Ishchenko would now lead the region?
However, today the danger of “black swans”, unexpected alliances and poorly predicted will of citizens is still actively cultivated within the regional establishment. Understandably, this is perhaps one of the few fears that technologists can sell to potential clients at different levels of government. Well, or let’s talk about the presence of a certain “high anti-note” against the background of a generally good “positive note” – it is clear where the note is, there is the anti-note. It is likely that, among other reasons, Primorye has decided to cancel the participation of self-nominated candidates – now you can only stand for the election of the governor of any party.
Political expert, head of the Center for Regional Policy Ilya Grashchenkov considers this not the best option. Pro-government candidates in the elections will now have to run, unlike in 2018, not as an independent candidate, but from United Russia, whose position Grashchenkov considers rather difficult.
“Overall, the party’s anti-rating has always been high, with all opposition representatives united against it. In fact, the elections in Primorye in 2018 showed that if the candidate is not too popular and too little funds are used for the campaign, then the opposition candidate may well win, which happened with Tarasenko. The situation reached the point where both had to leave the game and act Kozhemyako. Kozhemyako, of course, managed, as an experienced politician, to pull this situation out of the background of declining trust in the authorities, ”the expert believes.
Obviously, despite Kozhemyako’s strong personal positions both in the region and at the federal level, despite Pamfilova’s praise for the growth of confidence in the authorities, Primorye remains a very difficult region. And there are many examples of this.
Municipal elections for the past five years have almost never been without scandals – Arsenyev, Dalnegorsk, Ussuriysk, Nadezhdinsky district, Vladivostok. But they are “not real” – deputies choose, and regional government structures simply did not always manage to cope with the intrigues of local elites.
The results of the elections by popular will – to the State Duma and the Legislative Assembly of the region in 2021 – are also ambiguous: the “reds” have shown that they are still strong.
True, later the communists themselves managed to get into criminal cases under “unpopular” articles, such as their ideological inspirer in Primorye, the deputy of the regional parliament Samsonov, or anti-war statements at the beginning of the SVO . However, according to Grashchenkov, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation are strong enough in Primorye, and all this creates a problematic political landscape for Kozhemyako.
This is probably why the head of the CEC personally visited Primorye – to make sure that the region would not bring surprises, as in 2018. I personally met with the chairmen of territorial election commissions of Primorye and heads of municipalities. In order not to wake up famously, the region decided not to conduct electronic voting – “Primorye is not ready,” said Ella Pamfilova. There is another danger – the system may simply not withstand a possible massive attack from sworn friends of the West, well, or not all technical specialists can be fully trusted, which has already had several precedents in other computer-related fields, God forbids something and then they screw it up. Therefore, as we voted the old fashioned way, we will vote.
To what extent the upcoming regional elections can be seen as preparations for the presidential elections – it is obvious that for the most part exclusively from a technical point of view. In theory, Moscow will have the opportunity to understand the real moods of the regions and to see how well they understand and can manage the processes in the new realities. To understand whether there will be real and how strong attempts by the West to destabilize the situation in the country during the pre-election period. At the same time, it would probably be too optimistic to talk about the possibility of long-term forecasts based on data obtained in 2023 and projecting them into the 2024 election cycle – the domestic political situation not only in the country, but also around the world is heavily influenced by foreign policy factors, and the next presidential election will likely be tailored to the situation at any given time.
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