Sergei Kiriyenko became head of the Kremlin’s political bloc after the 2016 State Duma elections. His predecessor, Vyacheslav Volodin, lost his position partly because turnout in those elections fell below 50%, a show of popular apathy too notable to ignore.
Volodin had not wanted to overheat the system. But he worked hard to construct a network of sham public organizations around Putin, each offering unconditional support for the president and his policies. The All-Russia People’s Front was the clearest example.
Under Volodin’s model, a dependent or loyal electorate was expected to turn out on election day. This ensured predictability while also providing a measure of legitimacy. Protest-minded citizens, meanwhile, were expected to stay away from the polls and then draw the obvious conclusion: the authorities had won thanks to the votes of the loyal electorate.
At some point, however, this arrangement ceased to satisfy Putin. He had outgrown the political scenery built around the All-Russia People’s Front and wanted evidence of broader popular support. That support was supposed to be reflected in high turnout and a high share of the vote for the candidate backed by the authorities. Volodin’s model could not deliver the first of these.
Kiriyenko, the new man, understood the task perfectly. Under his leadership, the political bloc began systematically working to raise the official figures in federal elections — both turnout and the percentage of votes received by Putin and his new United Russia party.
Kiriyenko and his subordinates intensified the mobilization of the dependent electorate. Public-sector employees were joined by workers at businesses dependent on the authorities. Later, electronic voting was introduced, which, in theory, makes it possible to manipulate election results in virtually any way.
The quality of “popular support” therefore did not change when Kiriyenko replaced Volodin, but its official quantity increased. Moreover, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the political bloc was prepared to conduct an electoral procedure in June 2020 that was not required under the law. The constitutional amendments could have been adopted by votes in the upper and lower houses of parliament without any “referendum.” Formally, that is what happened: the amendments were approved by the State Duma and the Federation Council. But the vote organized by Kiriyenko and his subordinates once again gave Putin impressive numbers to display.
Running election campaigns has been the primary purpose of Putin’s political bloc since the days of Vladislav Surkov. Resolving intra-elite conflicts in the regions, fighting the opposition, and managing personnel policy in the systemic parties and regions were important, but secondary areas of work. More precisely, all of them ultimately served one purpose: organizing federal elections.
Kiriyenko’s political bloc has taken this electoral focus even further, leaving “work” with the opposition to the security agencies. Putin’s system of government remains based on a functional approach: every element of the system has its own function, and it is precisely that function that gives the element — and the person responsible for it — influence and institutional weight.
To strip an element of its function — in the political bloc’s case, for the system to abandon elections — is therefore to strip it of influence and alter the balance among the elites. Under the unwritten rules of the power vertical, the loss of a function must be compensated by granting its overseer, and the elite group behind him, a position of equivalent status.
Vladimir Putin follows an ultra-conservative approach to personnel appointments, which is why the system has long struggled to provide such compensatory positions. Finding a position for Sergei Kiriyenko if his bloc were to lose its electoral function would be difficult — and, before a major reshuffle, perhaps impossible.
Kiriyenko has known Putin for many years. At one point, he signed the documents appointing Putin as head of the FSB. Kiriyenko was one of the architects of Putin’s power vertical when he served as presidential envoy to the Volga Federal District and, apparently, oversaw nuclear-weapons development at Rosatom. He is also part of the influential Kovalchuk brothers’ clan, which is unlikely to want to surrender any of its spheres of influence.
In 2022, the Kremlin’s political managers managed to preserve gubernatorial elections, and therefore their own function, even though the security agencies had proposed canceling them because of the war. Apparently, postponing this year’s State Duma elections was also discussed. But for the reasons outlined above, the political bloc managed to preserve the scheduled date, aided by Putin’s enthusiasm for elections.
There is another reason the political bloc needs to hold this year’s State Duma elections, and it is also closely tied to bureaucratic power. Elections allow the bloc to maintain relationships with major state-owned companies and private businesses loyal to the Kremlin, assigning them tasks related to corporate mobilization. The same applies to the country’s governors.
The election campaign and preparations for election day create a period when the political bloc can issue orders to people and institutions to which it does not normally give orders — particularly businesses — and tighten its control over regional leaders. Elections thus serve as a demonstration of the bloc’s influence and capabilities to other players within the elite.
For Kiriyenko and his subordinates, it is easier to take the risk of holding elections under difficult conditions than to surrender powers that may prove impossible to regain. As an experienced official, Kiriyenko also understands that the level of his next appointment within the system depends on the institutional weight he has today — and therefore on his control over elections.
By the logic of the bureaucracy, Kiriyenko, with the support of his patrons, is preserving the elections — and for now, he is winning. The only major risk he faces is if turnout or United Russia’s result slumps. In which case, he’s in trouble.
Andrei Pertsev is a senior journalist at Meduza and writes on elections, among other issues.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
