2023-09-10 09:01:14
One day, surrounded by officials, at the inauguration of a new square. Another, in casual attire, for the award ceremony to young architects. A third, next to the head of the Kremlin, at the launch of an intra-city transport link on the waters of the Moskva. Officially, Sergei Sobyanin, 65, mayor of Moscow since 2010, is not campaigning for the election this Sunday, September 10. But this close friend of President Vladimir Putin is omnipresent. Almost every day, Muscovites discover their mayor’s activities in their mailbox through the local gazette.
This indirect way of campaigning has become the habit in almost a quarter of a century under Putin’s regime. This weekend, the election of the mayor of Moscow but also those of governors and regional parliaments across Russia, including in the four Ukrainian territories annexed in September 2022 by Moscow, are a dress rehearsal for the presidential election of next March.
“These are not elections but referendums!”quips political scientist Andreï Kolesnikov. The vote in Moscow is a preparation for the Kremlin: a mixture of political manipulation and sociological research on voters and ways to increase voting participation. » The authorities’ only fear: abstention.
As in the presidential election, the regime is staging extras against Sergei Sobyanin as competitors, notably Leonid Ziouganov, 34, grandson of the general secretary of the current Communist Party and figure of the so-called opposition. “systemic”, in reality loyal to the Kremlin. Far from the municipal of 2013, when a young anti-Kremlin figure was able to obtain more than 27% of the votes in the first round. It was Alexeï Navalny, who, never authorized to any other election since, will follow the ballot this weekend from … his prison.
Potential successor to Vladimir Putin
Sergueï Sobianine, he has been leading his real-false electoral campaign for months, without debates or meetings. Faced with the other candidates, all younger than him, he seems the most modern. In a decade, Moscow has indeed been transformed and embellished. The apparatchik turned out to be a formidable manager, surrounded by efficient technocrats. He increased the number of pedestrian zones, redeveloped parks and, to combat traffic jams, densified the public transport network and reorganized road traffic. Austere, this native Siberian is sometimes seen as a possible successor to Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
Aware of leading a city where the new middle class is largely critical of power and opposed to“special military operation” in Ukraine, Sergei Sobyanin was able to do the minimum service on this front, at a time when Moscow is the target of increasingly frequent drone strikes. “As a result, even if any critical voice is discouraged from participating in the electoral process, it is a fact: the mayor is popular. He is seen as outside of politics, as an effective manager who has transformed Moscow,” summarizes sociologist Denis Volkov. Archi-favorite to his own succession, Sergei Sobianine should win this Sunday in the first round. Like Vladimir Putin, in the next presidential election in March 2024.
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