Political scientist draws attention to competitiveness of United Vote Day 21:42

The main feature of EDG-2024 was the minimum number of violations and incidents. Political scientist Alexander Asafov, first deputy chairman of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation Commission for public consideration of draft laws, spoke about this at the roundtable “Elections 2024: main results.”

“More than 71 thousand of them represented 14 political parties, more than 43 thousand were candidates and more than 55 thousand were public chambers,” the official said.

Asafov also added that high turnout in elections is a clear indicator of citizens’ trust in the electoral institution and its high legitimacy.

Mikhail Mamonov, head of the VTsIOM Political Research Department, noted that past elections demonstrated society’s desire for stability.

He recalled that earlier representatives of the country’s leading sociological organizations had presented “popular forecasts.”

“We presented data for 21 regions and between 76 and 88% of voters surveyed said that the winners would be incumbents. And that’s what happened: incumbents won a landslide victory in all regions. This fact is extremely important for the legitimacy of the elections,” he added.

As Pavel Danilin, associate professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation and member of the Moscow Public Chamber, explained, the election process covered almost the entire country. According to him, parties and candidates showed high activity and the elections were competitive.

“More than 73 thousand people registered for the elections. 63.8 thousand of them are from 20 political parties and 9.3 thousand are candidates who have put forward their own candidacy. This year, 147 candidates have put forward their candidacy for the governorship elections. 120 of them are from 20 political parties and 27 of them put forward their own candidacy,” he said.

In summary, the roundtable participants noted that the elections were held in a calm atmosphere and that the electoral process was transparent, competitive and democratic. Furthermore, the results of a single voting day showed the consolidation of society and government.