This summer will mark the start of the election campaign season for Russian political parties, during which candidates, including filmmaker Vladimir Bortko, musician Sergey "Pauk" (Spider) Troitsky and Leonid Zyuganov, grandson of the Communist Party leader, will fight for votes and high-ranking positions in various regions
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 31st May, 2019) This summer will mark the start of the election campaign season for Russian political parties, during which candidates, including filmmaker Vladimir Bortko, musician Sergey "Pauk" (Spider) Troitsky and Leonid Zyuganov, grandson of the Communist Party leader, will fight for votes and high-ranking positions in various regions.Sputnik talked to the main players of this regional electoral cycle and found out in which Federal subjects the parties were concentrating their main forces.
Over 5,000 campaigns of various levels will run until September 8, the day when about 47,000 seats and elected positions to be voted on by the people. Governors will be elected in 16 regions, while the composition of legislative assemblies will be chosen in 13 Constituencies.
Campaigns in Russia's regions are being officially announced from May 30 to June 9.
The ruling United Russia party will nominate its candidates for the governor's seat in most of the regions where elections will take place.
According to a source in the party, its candidates will run in eight or nine regions, with the Orenburg Region, Stavropol Territory, Republic of Altai, Bashkortostan, Republic of Kalmykia, and Volgograd and Kursk regions among them.
United Russia has held traditional intraparty primaries to select candidates for elected offices. After the official results of this selection are announced, lists of candidates for elections in September will be approved at regional conferences. According to the preliminary results, more than 300 young candidates scored high, giving them the opportunity to claim party nominations for elections in legislative assemblies and administrative centers.
United Russia General Council Secretary Andrey Turchak has called on the secretaries of the regional offices to make sure that "those who won the preliminary vote are on the party's list of candidates."
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) intends to participate in elections in all regions. Ordinary party members who have proven themselves will fight for positions at various levels.
"We do not have celebrities [as candidates], because the party does not recourse to nominating artists, journalists, singers, and musicians for the elections. We nominate our party members who live in this region, work in this region and who achieve something in their own entity," the head of the LDPR Supreme Council, Igor Lebedev, said.
According to Communist Party of Russia (CPRF) Deputy Chairman Yuri Afonin, the CPRF did a lot of preparatory work before nominating candidates for governorships and legislative assemblies.
"We will nominate our heads in all regions where the heads of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation will be elected. Moreover, we took into account the most active members of the parties and sociological polls. We believe that in each of the regions we will nominate people who have the greatest chances of winning ... Each of our candidates is well known in his or her region. Vladimir Vladimirovich Bortko will be nominated in St. Petersburg," Afonin said.
Among the well-known candidates on candidate lists is not only Bortko, but also the grandson of the Communist Party leader, Leonid Zyuganov. He already won a seat in the Moscow City Duma (parliament) and is now an active member there. According to sources in the party, Zyuganov will run in the city parliament elections this year as a nominee of the CPRF.
A Just Russia party will determine its strategy for the elections at the party's presidium on June 15. However, Sergey Mironov, the party leader, has noted that, as a rule, the party nominates heads of regional offices to run federal subjects.
"We understand that while there are such artificial barriers, a municipal filter, it is not easy for our candidates to get registered. But we will do our best to ensure that A Just Russia is properly represented in the gubernatorial elections," Mironov explained.
According to him, 661 deputies of thirteen regional legislative assemblies will be elected on September 8.
"We will have candidates if not for all then for most of these seats," he added.
The Communists of Russia party has thoroughly prepared its candidates for election day.
"We will try to nominate candidates in the 13 federal subjects where regional parliaments will be elected," the party's chairman Maxim Suraykin said.
The Civic Platform liberal-conservative party has not yet decided on its nominees for the gubernatorial elections, but the party will nominate candidates to compete for seats in legislatures in the Bryansk Region, Karachay-Cherkessia Region, Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, Moscow and the Republic of Tatarstan.
The Rodina alliance also intends to participate in regional campaigns. It will nominate its candidates for governorships and seats in legislatures.
"We will try to nominate our candidates in all regions. We will nominate our governor in St. Petersburg, and we plan to nominate [our candidate] for the mayor's office in Novosibirsk. The Novosibirsk regional branch launched some kind of primaries. In the Stavropol region, we will nominate our candidate [for governor]," party spokeswoman Tatyana Kalegina told Sputnik.
The Yabloko party is actively preparing to nominate their candidates for gubernatorial elections and is conducting intraparty primaries. It has also prepared candidates for the Moscow City Duma elections and will nominate single-mandate candidates in the republics of Altai, Kabardino-Balkaria and Tatarstan, and regions of Karachay-Cherkessia, Krasnoyarsk, Novgorod, Sverdlovsk and Tula.
According to Dmitry Gudkov, chairman of the political party Civil Initiative, the main forces of the party will be thrown at the Moscow City Duma and municipal campaign in St. Petersburg.
"Our main campaign is for the Moscow City Duma, Moscow. We have seven candidates in seven districts," Gudkov said. He himself will run for a seat in the capital's parliament.
The Greens also have a particular interest in the Moscow campaign. According to Alexander Zakondyrin, the Green Alliance Party's chairman, a party candidate with run in electoral districts in the capital's northwest and west.
Sergey Baburin from the All-People's Union party will also try to get into the Moscow City Duma.
"I know that my associates in St. Petersburg nominated me, but I have not made any decisions about that yet," Baburin said.
The Patriots of Russia party decided not to nominate candidates in Moscow and instead focus on other areas of the country, specifically the Karachay-Cherkessia Region and Republic of Altai.
"We are likely to run in several regions in the gubernatorial elections... Moscow is financially costly, therefore it is difficult for a non-parliamentary party [to nominate candidates]," the party's deputy chair, Nadezhda Korneeva, noted.
Seats in the capital's parliament are the priority for most parties, but it is not only party candidates who want to fight for them. A number of well-known public figures, musicians and politicians also plan to take part in the Moscow election campaign.
For example, Russian musician Sergey Troitsky, known as "the Spider," has announced his intention to run in the elections.
"We will limit ourselves to the Moscow city elections, because this is a good launching pad for voicing new ideas that emerged after the football championship [FIFA World Cup] and other accomplishments Moscow has achieved over the past year," Troitsky said.
The founder of the Vera Hospice Charity Fund, Anna Federmesser, is among Spider's competitors. She is going to run for a seat in the Moscow City Duma from the 43rd electoral district.
"I will register, I will try to collect signatures and I will wait for the decision of the people who live in these areas," she wrote on her social media page.
Sergey Mitrokhin, the former head of Moscow's Yabloko, will also take part in the electoral contest.
"I have decided to run for deputy in the 43rd district ... I have been working and living here for many years," Mitrokhin wrote on his website.
Another opposition politician, Ilya Yashin, announced his intention to nominate himself for the Moscow City Duma elections as well. According to him, after successfully working as the head of the Krasnoselsky municipality, he decided to run for a deputy seat in the Moscow parliament.
