Thread by @baunov

THREAD 1/12 Fluctuations in the election results are down to Russia being a federation: you get different pictures by looking at the Far East, Siberia & the Urals, European Russia, & the south. Still, even allowing for manipulation of the results, some broad trends are visible.

2/12 Overall, the system is in defensive mode. Putin’s position is that Russia needs some decades of calm, and then there can be change. Russia is defending its sovereignty, and the current system of four patriotic parties has proven reliable.

3/12 The loss of one of those parties, or its replacement by another, untested one would put stress on the system. So any innovation must be made within the current system.

4/12 The problem is that at every election, there are people who seek to strip United Russia of its constitutional majority by casting a protest vote for those other parties. Instead of an “in-system” partner opposition, the other parties are becoming in-system spoilers.

5/12 So at every election, the in-system partners need their own in-system spoilers. And every Kremlin overseer of domestic politics launches a corresponding party, simultaneously broadening the options and attracting underrepresented voters to take part.

6/12 The task is a delicate balancing act of 1) preserving United Russia’s constitutional majority 2) preserving the four patriotic party system, but not to the detriment of United Russia, & 3) launching their own projects—but not to the detriment of the four-party system.

7/12 Problems may arise if a new party starts to push out an old one. There was a danger that the New People party would squeeze out A Just Russia, which was itself devised as a spoiler party for the Communists back in the 2000s.

8/12 The statist LDPR has also begun to seem less unique compared to United Russia. The only difference in this election was that a vote for the former could be a protest vote. The LDPR is also under threat from the statist businessmen from the New People.

9/12 Right now, as votes are counted, there is a battle between those in favor of maintaining the status quo, and those who support cautious experiments with figures who have not yet been tested and are not an entirely known quantity—not only to voters, but to the Kremlin itself.

10/12 If the weakened LDPR, A Just Russia, and New People clear the threshold into the State Duma, the Kremlin overseers’ work is done at this stage. United Russia is where it needs to be, the system is intact, and as a bonus, there’s a return to the five-party system.

11/12 Some of the still unrepresented liberal voters will be glad to see a newcomer fill the space left by the liberal Yabloko party. Unlike the intellectual, ie idealistic Yabloko, the New People present themselves as businesspeople, ie practical liberals and pragmatists.

12/12 If the New People do win seats, it remains to be seen whether they will play the role of liberal whipping boys, like on state TV talk shows (though the Duma is less of a show & more about lobbying than it seems from the outside), and what niche they will eventually occupy.