Russians are voting again for regional offices, and Meduza sources say the elections will test the Kremlin's plan to replace the Communist Party

Russia is nearing the end of its recent gubernatorial and regional elections — elections that offer virtually no political competition but nonetheless test the Kremlin's sophisticated handling of public office. While early voting has been taking place in the Kursk region and parts of Crimea since August 28 due to Ukrainian military operations, the rest of Russia's elections take place this weekend, September 6-8: races for 21 governorships and seats in 13 regional parliaments. To learn more about the Kremlin's plans for these elections, Meduza spoke to two sources close to the Putin administration's political team, two regional officials and a political adviser currently working on a regional campaign.

Three races to keep an eye on

Meduza has already covered the three most important gubernatorial elections in Russia: St. Petersburg, Khabarovsk and the Altai Republic.

Saint Petersburg

In St. Petersburg, the Kremlin's spin doctors and election agents have ensured Alexander Beglov's victory by limiting his opponents to little-known politicians with deeply unpopular platforms. The only political party represented in the Duma that has fielded a candidate in St. Petersburg is the LDPR, and two smaller “opposition parties” are fielding their own politicians. All of these rival candidates are advocating policies that are alienating voters who might otherwise have voted for anyone other than the incumbent governor Beglov: Pavel Bragin (“Green Alternative”) advocates banning gasoline and diesel cars from entering the city center (even for local residents) and proposes narrowing the streets; Maxim Yakovlev (LDPR) wants to ban foreign music; and Sergei Malinkovych (“Communists of Russia”) proposes renaming the city Leningrad, dismantling all food delivery services, and reviving the All-Union Leninist Pioneer Organization of the USSR.

Sources close to the St. Petersburg regional government and the Putin administration admitted to Meduza that the participation of such weak opponents could push turnout even lower than the dismal 30.8 percent of the last election. A source close to the Kremlin told Meduza that the authorities had abandoned the original plan to suppress turnout by keeping the campaign largely “invisible” to the public and instead decided “out of excessive caution” to stuff the ballot papers with absurd competitors. Beglov's actual popularity ratings are probably between 30 and 40 percent, Meduza's source said.

Khabarovsk

There has been no such change in tactics in Khabarovsk and the Altai Republic. In Khabarovsk, former deputy prosecutor general Dmitry Demeshin has been acting governor since May. The United Russia member has sought to replicate the appeal of his jailed predecessor Sergei Furgal, an LDPR politician whose arrest in 2020 sparked some of the region's largest and most sustained protests in recent memory. A local state official told Meduza that Demeshin had run into trouble with his act, which relies on criticizing the region's lower-level officials to demonstrate his commitment to the population. “People have started to realize that Demeshin is exaggerating and is only playing the role of Furgal,” Meduza's source said, explaining that Demeshin's constant attacks on local authorities had become too “annoying and exaggerated.”

The Altai Republic

In the Altai Republic, incumbent governor Andrey Turchak is fighting for his political survival after being overambitious in his bid for Beglov's post in St. Petersburg and becoming too close to the late mercenary leader and insurgent Yevgeny Prigozhin. As Meduza previously reported, Turchak is now determined to regain President Putin's favor by showing his willingness to take on any task given to him. He has toured the Altai Republic more extensively than incumbent candidates in most other regions, and he will also face only two opponents, making this potentially the least competitive election campaign in the country.

Regional parliamentary elections

According to Meduza's sources, the Kremlin views this weekend's gubernatorial elections as “just an additional test of voter turnout.” Authorities have had years to refine candidate filtering, real political competition is broken, and the only surprises left are the exact plans of individual governors and their subordinates to mobilize voters.

At the same time, the Kremlin's political team is questioning the “vitality” of the existing Russian party system, a source close to the government told Meduza. Fair Russia is in danger of falling below the State Duma's five percent threshold, the LDPR is performing inconsistently in the absence of its late founder Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) has been losing votes for years. “All established parties are in decline,” Meduza's source said.

The Kremlin has tried to hasten the decline of the KPRF by promoting the “opposition parties” that are doing best in the polls in various regions, bringing in rivals who have pushed the Communists out of Russia's entrenched number two party (sometimes this means the New People, elsewhere the LDPR, etc.). The Putin government successfully pursued this strategy in last year's elections, and the KPRF lost its place as the strongest “opposition party” in half of the regions that voted.

According to Meduza's sources, the reason for the crackdown on the KPRF is simple: the communists still criticize the government (albeit to a moderate extent and publicly support the invasion of Ukraine).

Given the ailing party system, voter turnout this year is expected to be dangerously low. “The lower the turnout, the more distorted the results will be,” said a political adviser to the presidential administration. If turnout is too low, even the authorities' fraud and other manipulation will make it difficult to cover up United Russia's implausible results. The Kremlin will monitor turnout this weekend to gauge its plans for at least 50 percent turnout in the 2026 State Duma elections.

If turnout this weekend is too low and the established “opposition parties” perform too poorly, the presidential administration will have to decide whether to strengthen one of Russia’s smaller parties (for example, the socially conservative Pensioners’ Party), create a new one (as the Kremlin did in late 2020), or rebrand the KPRF’s most promising rival. (Parties in Russia with seats in only one regional parliament can field candidates for federal elections without having to collect public signatures.) Whatever the government decides, the target will be left-wing voters, Meduza’s source says. The authorities already have United Russia for loyalists and parties like New People for moderates, but the KPRF and Fair Russia are dying out due to demographics and the regime’s own machinations. “If there are changes in the party system, they will come from the left,” a source close to the government told Meduza.

The Kremlin reportedly plans to test its findings from this weekend's election in regional elections next year – ahead of the more important Russian State Duma elections in 2026.