On October 1, RASO Committee on Political Technologies held a closed meeting dedicated to results of election taking part on September 13. More than 60 experts took part in the discussion.

The following topics were raised among main reports and discussions:

• Elections into Baltic District Council (speaker – Andrey Maksimov, Political Technologist).
• Campaign of Spravedlivaya Rossia at elections into legal assembly of Chelyabinsk region (it was highlighted by State Deputy of RF Valery Gartung.
• Elections into regional and municipal councils of Novosybirsk region (speaker – Andrey Troshkin, Political Technologist).
• Elections of Governors in Mariy-El (speaker – Oleg Matveychev) and Omsk Region (as told by Dmitry Gousev, Founder of Backster Group, and Oleg Zakharov (Electorate Legal Advisor)
• Municipal elections in Krasnoyarsk land (Sergey Tolmachev, Deputy of Krasnoyarsk Legislative Assembly),
• As well as elections into Samara Municipal Duma (Council) (Vladimir Perevozchikov and Julia Meleshnkina, Political Technologist).

A separate topic was Elections of Governor of Irkoutsk region held in two rounds: (the topic was covered by Yevgeny Minchenko and Aleksey Vasiliev). ‘Quite an interesting sketch on the topic of motivation of Irkoutsk elite and voters. Why did negative against current governor work effectively and did not work that effectively against a candidate. Let me provide and example. Such a quotation can be mentioned. It was coined by a focus group in the region, ‘In Irkoutsk, we elected Kondrashov as a mayor like a cat in a bag, while he turned out to be the best mayor ever. Should Sergey Levchenko not suit us, we shall eat him as well’. Once, I compared Irkoutsk elite with a pack of wolves  showing their jaws dirty with dried out blood of ex-governors. This metaphor seems to be quite close to their disposition’ – as it was mentioned by Yevgeny Minchenko based on the results of the event.

Yevgeny Minchenko also pointed out good working results of Chief of Central Election Committee of Unified Russia Sergey Neverov – ‘Judging by speeches of my colleagues at elections in Novosybyrsk and Samara region, Sergey Neverov worked hard this season’.

Participant shared the same opinion – such events were very useful for exchanging experience and discussing campaign cases. ‘Irkoutsk, Omsk, Baltiysk, Mariy-El, Novosibirsk. Samara. We lack only Amur, Arkhangel and Nizhny Novgorod – and we would have a complete list of interesting campaigns in 2015. RASO Committee on Political Technologies is a very correct framework of discussion (closed, having a big rest from campaigns). It is not something out of the blue, but there is lots of accuracy and texture in it’, as a Political Technologist Valentin Bianki (‘Bianki and Partners’) provided his comments.