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| 14 октября, 2012

A bad turnout at elections is the result of bad politics

'Kommersant Daily' publication

By Maxim Ivanov

The ‘United Russia’ party and experts from the Foundation of civil development under the direction of Konstantin Kostin, have concluded that "United Russia" claimed lost territory after the unsuccessful Duma elections the year before, but that in contrast the opposition has not been able to mobilize their electorate.

The opposition responded by saying that the election victory was not for ‘United Russia’ but for ‘powerful governmental pressure’.

Konstantin Kostin began the debate with the announcement that he was 'pleased with the election, probably more so than the United Russia party because in the run up to elections the Foundation released a report, which correctly predicted the outcome. ("Kommersant" reported this back on 3^rd October).

The main outcome: United Russia reaffirmed ‘its dominant party status’ and ‘took convincing revenge’ in both national and regional centers. Mr. Kostin believes that there is therefore no need to ‘over-dramatize’ reports of a low turnout.

Kostin added that the reason people did not show much interest in voting – including the governors elections which hadn’t taken place for 8 years – was because ‘firstly, local elections attract less interest (than national ones – B) and secondly everyone is happy and doesn't particularly want anything changed.’

However the General Director of The All Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) Valery Fyodorov, believes that the question of power was actually decided back in March, when Vladimir Putin was elected president and that subsequent votes came only from the ‘core’ of the party electorate.

‘A bad turnout is the result of bad politics’ said the deputy secretary of the General Council of United Russia, Alexei Chesnakov who was present at the round table as the leader of the Scientific Council of Political Conjuncture. He believes that it is the opposition who should be most concerned about the mobilization of the electorate, who were jaded following two national electoral campaigns.

Vitaly Ivanov, head of the Regional research Foundation said: ‘We observed no particular desire for victory or creativity either from the old opposition or from the new ‘Bolotnaya’ opposition.'

The Communist, Vadim Potomsky, who ran for governor in the Bryansk region, was one of the few examples of a candidate running a successful campaign.

Konstantin Kostin called "Fair Russia" one of the principle losers in the election as they only won three of the six regions. It was not so much due to legal violations he said, as the fact that their party voters are quite conservative. He was also not impressed with ‘Fair Russia’ hounding Gennady Gudkov out of the State Duma.

In addition, the new parties’ first attempt at winning votes ‘was not very successful’ stated Mr. Kostin. He singled out Communist Russia, the Pensioners' Party, the Democratic Party and the Greens for particular failure at the elections.

Oleg Mikheev, State Duma deputy for ‘Fair Russia’ says: ‘I will be ready to agree with United Russia, when they can explain why the turnout in the regions increased sharply, and what sort of situation we would have without absentee ballots and votes from home.’

The State Duma deputy for the Communist Party, Sergei Obukhov told ‘Kommersant’ that it was not United Russia who won on October 14 but ‘powerful governmental pressure which spits on the law.’