Stanislav Belkovsky is a Russian political strategist and publicist, founder and former director of the Institute for National Strategy. In an interview with RBC South, he explained how, in his view, the electorate of southern Russia differs from the rest of the country, and how the campaigns of opposition candidates are proceeding.
“A demand for liberty”
According to Belkovsky, regional differences across Russia are strong, and the South has always been closer to Ukraine in mentality. “For example, in Rostov Oblast there is a great demand not even for freedom but for liberty. Therefore any opposition candidate here can succeed with competent work,” he said.
He named a clear alternative as the main condition for success: a politician, in his opinion, cannot count on part of the electorate by merely slightly repackaging the slogans of the current government. A support base can be assembled, Belkovsky argued, only by radically setting out the differences from the existing course. In this connection he highlighted three theses of Ksenia Sobchak: a transition to parliamentary democracy, opposition to war and closeness to Europe. He called the cessation of war especially important for the Don, since, according to him, troops are sent into Ukraine and brought back from the territory of Rostov Oblast.
Belkovsky acknowledged that these slogans do not enjoy the support of the majority, but added: “In politics it is important to create your own minority. You cannot appeal to the majority without having created your own minority.”
Campaign and boycott
Speaking about the collection of signatures, Belkovsky stated that signatures for Vladimir Putin were collected with the help of administrative resources and that Putin himself, in his estimation, is not interested in how the campaign is going. “The question is not who will be president. It will be Putin. The question is how many percent the opposition candidates will get,” he said. Belkovsky therefore called himself an opponent of Alexei Navalny's idea of boycotting the elections: in his opinion, a boycott would reduce the number of votes for opposition candidates, whereas Putin will win in the first round regardless of the result.
According to the independent observers with whom, he said, he had spoken, the campaigns of Putin and Sobchak are noticeable in Rostov Oblast. He called the visibility of Sobchak's campaign a good result, noting that he does not deal with regional issues at the headquarters but sees that people are drawn to the opposition candidate.
New faces and old politicians
Belkovsky spoke of society's demand for a new face in Russian politics, which, in his opinion, could well be Sobchak, and of the greater plasticity of the electorate in the regions compared with Moscow. To a remark about aggression in the regions he replied that aggression against Sobchak, with proper management, could be converted into support.
He explained the lack of attention to the regions on the part of some opposition candidates by a shortage of resources, primarily human. About Grigory Yavlinsky, Belkovsky said that he is good as an economist and polemicist, but that a credit of trust was appropriate for him 20 years ago. Politicians active in the 1990s, he called uninteresting to the voter. According to him, Gennady Zyuganov acted wittily by giving way in the elections to Pavel Grudinin.
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