Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 23 – The continuing
protests in Khabarovsk, the result of the Kremlin’s removal of a popular
governor from the LDPR, could find echoes in five other regions of the Russian
Federation after the September 13 elections, according to experts at Moscow’s
Minchenko Consulting Group.
The five Kremlin candidates most
likely at risk of losing are Penza Governor Ivan Belozertsev, Irkutsk’s Igor
Kobzev, Arkhangelsk’s Aleksandr Tsybulsky, Kostroma’s Sergey Sitnikov, and
Krasnodar’s Veniamen Kondratyev (znak.com/2020-08-23/eksperty_v_pyati_regionah_rossii_na_vyborah_mozhet_povtoritsya_habarovskiy_scenariy).
Four others are also at risk of
being forced into a second round of voting, the Minchenko Consulting experts
continue, although not as great as these five: Rostov’s Vasily Golubyev,
Tambov’s Aleksandr Nikitin, Komi Republic’s Vladimir Uyba, and Perm Kray’s
Dmitry Makhonin.
People in the regions want change,
and they especially want to feel that the individual serving as governor is
their representative rather than an outsider imposed on them by Moscow. Many of the one’s at risk fail as far as both
of these things are concerned: they represent continuity rather than change and
they haven’t established their bona fides with local people.
Many of these nine have used the
devices of their predecessors to improve their chances: running as independents
rather than as part of the often hated United Russia of which they are members,
and working hard to exclude from the voting potentially popular opponents,
although the latter move is so obvious that it is no longer as effective as it
once was.
The man Moscow has imposed in
Krasnoyarsk, Mikhail Degtyarev, in place of Sergey Furgal, would likely be
among those forced on the defensive by the elections; but because his arrival
came so late, Degtyarev won’t face the voters until sometime in the fall of
2021. Whether he can win over the local population by then remains to be seen.
No comments:
Post a Comment