Formally, Elena Shuvalova, a very good deputy of the Moscow City Duma, was expelled over this photo:
In her capacity as a deputy, she organized a roundtable discussion and invited me to it. On the face of it, nothing unusual. Every deputy holds countless roundtables and invites whoever they want.
But in this case, it was personal both for Moscow City Duma chairman, billionaire Shaposhnikov, whom we nearly threw out of the Duma with this investigation and Smart Voting, and for United Russia, which ended up far short of the number of seats it expected and came within a hair’s breadth of losing its majority.
Nevertheless, I have no doubt that the real reason for Shuvalova’s expulsion was not the roundtable I took part in, but the Kremlin’s consistent strategy of fighting Smart Voting.
Shuvalova is an excellent deputy. She is completely independent of the mayor’s office. And she is an example of a Communist Party member who, despite her fairly orthodox views on party ideology, is ready to work with all groups of opposition-minded voters.
The Kremlin understands a simple thing: her voters + Communist Party votes + Smart Voting = a guaranteed victory over United Russia. Guaranteed independence from the executive branch.
That is why the Kremlin’s objective consists of two things:
to force the Communist Party to abandon a winning strategy that would bring it many deputy seats; to disillusion some of the participants in Smart Voting: “What’s the point of voting for the communists if they end up expelling the decent ones anyway?”
The position of any systemic party in Russia is such that the executive authorities can force it to do a great many things. And that is exactly what they are doing.
Elena Shuvalova herself put it exactly right: the Communist Party is being forced to destroy itself.
Well, this was fairly obvious. Since they cannot do anything about Smart Voting, which is taking deputy seats away from United Russia and giving them to the communists, they have to make the communists beat up on themselves in order to disillusion everyone around them.
Of course, the Communist Party is large and diverse. It includes outright Kremlin stooges, those who are forced to play along, and decent people. And there are even some truly outstanding ones. I would note that all of Shuvalova’s most important colleagues in the faction came to the meeting where she was expelled: Engalycheva, Loktev, Stupin, and Sheremetyev. So despite everything, the faction remains oppositional and independent.
For my part, I want once again to express my support for Elena Anatolyevna. The truth is, of course, on her side. And most importantly, the voters are on her side. After this expulsion, they are behind her even more strongly, because everyone has seen that she does not make compromises and does not take part in shady dealings.