On September 14, more than five thousand election campaigns of various levels concluded—from elections for deputies of small rural councils to gubernatorial ones. Around 100 thousand candidates participated, vying for approximately 40 thousand seats. Among these campaigns, several dozen relatively large ones stood out: direct gubernatorial elections took place in 20 regions (including the governor of Sevastopol, annexed in 2014), elections for regional parliament deputies in 11 regions, and elections for city council deputies in administrative centers of 24 regions.
The key feature of these (non)elections lies not in their results, which were predictable and arouse little interest, but in the methods used to achieve them.
Imitation of Gubernatorial Elections
The 2025 gubernatorial elections vividly demonstrated the trends that have become entrenched in recent years: incumbent heads won in all regions. According to the «Election Atlas» project, the number of nominated candidates decreased by almost 20% compared to 2020. At the same time, in half of the regions, all registered candidates remained on the ballots, which, under the «municipal filter» conditions, indicates prior coordination of all candidacies with the authorities.
Formally opposition candidates, in fact, posed no real competition to the incumbent governors anywhere. The case of the CPRF is telling: in ten regions, the party nominated candidates who had previously run in gubernatorial elections but had never shown competitiveness. In four regions, deliberately not the strongest possible candidates were put forward, and in Chuvashia, the CPRF did not field anyone at all. The only exception was Irkutsk Oblast, where former governor Sergei Levchenko ran for the CPRF, offering some hope for competition. However, these expectations quickly faded when it became clear that Levchenko was not conducting a real campaign.
The situation in other parties was similar: any attempts to nominate candidates who could at least theoretically pose competition were swiftly suppressed. For example, in Kamchatka Krai, the «A Just Russia — For Truth» party decided to nominate well-known regional TV presenter Alexandra Novikova, who gained fame after failing to contain her laughter on air while reporting on the meager indexing of benefits. On June 17, the party’s central council presidium in Moscow approved her candidacy, but on June 20, at the request of the Presidential Administration, this decision was revoked. Between these dates, the regional party branch held a conference where Novikova was elected as leader and confirmed as a gubernatorial candidate, but in the end, she didn’t even manage to submit documents to the election commission.
In Sverdlovsk Oblast, the LDPR initially nominated well-known State Duma deputy Stanislav Naumov. However, two weeks later, he withdrew his candidacy because he couldn’t collect the required number of municipal deputy signatures in support of his nomination. The party quickly replaced him with a weaker candidate who had no such issues. In the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, «New People» candidate Vladimir Potapenko managed to pass the registration stage but unexpectedly withdrew from participation on August 27, two weeks before voting began.
In cases where parties themselves did not withdraw potentially inconvenient candidates, they simply failed to pass the «municipal filter,» as happened in Komi with the regionally known communist Oleg Mikhailov.
Under such conditions, the campaign teams of administrative candidates not only had to collect signatures for all formal opponents of the incumbent regional head but sometimes even finance their election campaigns. For instance, in Arkhangelsk Oblast, three nominal competitors of the governor received donations for their campaigns from a single source—an organization linked to a well-known political technologist.
Thus, in no region did voters see a genuinely competitive campaign.
Parliamentary Elections
Elections to representative bodies of regions and their administrative centers suffered from the same problem—the absence of real competition. Amid wartime censorship, intensifying political repressions, and accelerating asset redistribution, the number of those willing to test their fate in elections also declined. Thus, the average number of party lists nominated in regional elections in 2025 was almost half that of five years ago. The number of registered party lists also showed a noticeable decrease—by about 20−25%. A similar, though less pronounced, trend was observed in city elections.
Real competition at this level became purely intra-party, unfolding mainly between different groups of «United Russia» members. A vivid example is Novosibirsk Oblast, where, on the eve of the campaign’s start, a group of incumbent LDPR deputies representing the interests of a major developer and State Duma deputy from «United Russia» Dmitry Savelyev defected to «United Russia.» Such transitions inevitably force «veteran» party members to make room, leading to scandals, including public ones. This time, the conflict erupted into accusations of falsifying the results of the spring intra-party primaries.
There were also signs of collusive campaigns at this level of elections: parties cleared districts for their formal opponents. For example, in Novosibirsk Oblast, Krasnodar Krai, and other regions, winners of «United Russia» primaries unexpectedly refused to run just a few weeks after they were held. In some cases, districts were cleared for CPRF candidates, in others—for representatives of other parties.
Nevertheless, the lower the level of elections, the greater the chances of seeing genuine competition. In individual districts and municipalities, real struggles unfolded. For example, in Khakassia, the CPRF managed to win the mayor’s post in Chernogorsk, and in rural areas of Yakutia, «United Russia» lost several mayoral campaigns. However, such cases remained exceptions, as there were very few who wanted to compete for real.
War and Elections
Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) reported that 1,616 participants in the war against Ukraine were nominated in elections at all levels. This number exceeds previous years’ figures but remains insignificant—about 1.6% of the total number of candidates. For comparison, candidates with criminal convictions under criminal articles were almost twice as many, though their participation was practically unnoticeable.
It’s important to clarify who exactly falls into the «Special military operation participants» category. To a significant extent, these are former deputies, officials, and incumbent senior officers of the Russian army—groups traditionally widely represented on ballots in elections at all levels. A telling example is Evgeny Peryshov, who won the election for head of Tambov Oblast. Awarded the Order of Courage, this war participant was elected as a State Duma deputy from «United Russia» in 2021, previously served several years as mayor of Krasnodar, and even earlier was elected to the Krasnodar city duma from different parties—”Rodina" and «A Just Russia.» Thus, Peryshov represents a typical career politician who successfully leveraged circumstances to advance to the position of regional head.
The topic of the war was practically not raised in pre-election agitation. However, the agitation itself was barely noticeable. Notably, during the election for head of Krasnodar Krai, none of the candidates mentioned one of the largest Ukrainian drone attacks on the region. War remains the «elephant in the room”—a topic that everyone carefully avoids mentioning, despite its obvious presence.
The State of the Party System Ahead of Federal Elections
The past elections became yet another testament to the degradation of Russia’s party system.
Following the single voting day in 2025, the number of political parties that will have the «parliamentary privilege» for State Duma deputy elections next year decreased. If in 2021, 14 parties could nominate candidates without collecting signatures, now only 12 remain. From the previous list, the Growth Party, the Russian Party of Freedom and Justice (RPFJ), and, based on the current campaign, «Green Alternative» dropped out. Over four years, only the Direct Democracy Party was added to the list of parties with the privilege.
At the same time, among the parties retaining the privilege, decline is also evident. For example, «Yabloko» is increasingly less like a full-fledged political party, transforming more into a political movement «For Peace.» The oldest democratic party essentially missed the 2025 campaign, nominating fewer than 300 candidates nationwide, mainly in Pskov and Tomsk oblasts. Despite the right to nominate candidates without collecting signatures in five regional administrative centers, «Yabloko» participated in deputy elections only in Tomsk, where it received 4.86% of the votes, failing to overcome the threshold.
The CPRF is also degrading, having lost up to half of its support over five years, and even more in some places. «A Just Russia» is also losing ground: in many cases, it failed to overcome the five-percent barrier. Meanwhile, the LDPR maintains its positions, and «New People» shows slight growth. However, «United Russia» remains the main beneficiary, having monopolized the public-political space and facing virtually no opposition from other parties.
Nevertheless, extrapolating these results to the 2026 State Duma elections would be premature. First, the federal election campaign differs substantially from regional and local elections in character and scale. Second, much will depend on developments in the foreign policy sphere. The war currently exerts key influence on domestic politics, effectively freezing public political activity within the country.
