Comparative analysis of the election programs of the Liberal Democratic Party in the 2021 elections and L.E.Slutsky in the 2024 elections

Vnuk Vladimir Konstantinovich ORCID: 0000-0002-8204-4079 PhD in Politics Associate Professor; Department of Fundamental Legal and Socio-Humanitarian Disciplines; Non-governmental educational private institution of Higher Education 'Moscow Financial and Industrial University 'Synergy'. 80 Leningradsky ave., Moscow, 129090, Russia wnuk@mail.ru

introduction

The modern party system in Russia is relatively young: the beginning of its formation can be considered 1989-1990 ^{[11, p. 141]}. Among all modern Russian political parties, only the LDPR, along with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, was represented in the lower house of parliament of all eight convocations. Over the thirty-five years of its activity, the LDPR has managed to develop its own policy based on the views of V. V. Zhirinovsky. However, the LDPR is currently at a turning point in its existence, which is caused not only by the death of its former leader, but also by the party's declining popularity. In our opinion, this is not least due to the ideological crisis facing the Liberal Democratic Party.

Throughout its existence, the LDPR has been a leadership-type party, and largely due to the charisma of V.V.Zhirinovsky, it has survived many electoral cycles and maintained its presence in the State Duma as a separate faction. During the period of a series of liquidations of political parties in the late noughties of the XXI century, which followed the tightening of membership requirements, the Liberal Democratic Party remained among the 7 political parties that retained state registration. ^{[8, p. 49]}

The coronavirus pandemic, which began in 2019, dramatically changed the conditions of existence of political parties, forcing them to quickly rebuild and look for new ways to build communication within parties and with the electorate. ^{[9, p. 26]} The pandemic also dealt a serious blow to the Liberal Democratic Party – the consequences of the coronavirus caused the death of V.V.Zhirinovsky. The LDPR is faced with the need to find a new leader.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this article is a comparative analysis of the election program of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia in the elections to the State Duma of the VIII convocation in 2021 and the election program of the candidate for the post of President of the Russian Federation L.E.Slutsky in the elections of 2024.

The objectives of the study are to carry out a comparative analysis of election programs in the following areas:

a. Public administration;

b. Economic policy;

B. Social policy;

G. rulemaking;

D. International politics.

RESEARCH METHODS

The methodological basis of the research is comparative analysis, historical method, event analysis, case method, quantitative content analysis.

Comparative analysis provides a comparison, juxtaposition, and identification of common and special features in political events, documents, or processes.

Within the framework of the historical method, phenomena and facts are studied over a relatively long period of time.

As part of the event analysis, a study of the dynamics of events is carried out in order to identify the main trends in the evolution of the political process.

The case method analyzes a specific economic, social, or political situation.

As part of the content analysis, the text of the document is analyzed in order to identify the frequency of use of certain terms, followed by the interpretation of quantitative data.

THE RESULTS OF THE STUDY

The LDPR election program was adopted on June 25, 2021 at the XXXIII Party Congress.

The program includes the following ten sections:

I. "Politics and Power", which reveals the issues of domestic policy;

II. "Foreign Policy", which outlines the LDPR's view on the foreign policy problems of our time;

III. "Leap forward!", which outlines the algorithm of the most important, according to the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party, reforms and transformations.

IV. Russian Russians and Other Peoples of Russia, which describes ways to defend the interests and protect the rights of Russians and other peoples living in the Russian Federation;

V. "Social policy", which lists the main measures in the field of youth, family policy, as well as measures to support the most vulnerable segments of the population;

VI. "Education and Science", which suggests ways to stimulate the development of Russian science.

VII "Health and Ecology", in which the party leadership sets out its views on health and nature protection issues;

VIII. "Law and Order", in which the LDPR leadership formulates a view on the legal regime and legality in the Russian Federation;

IX. "Economics", which lists the main measures to reform the economic and financial system of the country;

X. "Small and medium-sized businesses", which lists measures to support entrepreneurship.

In the field of public administration, the Liberal Democratic Party proposes: the allocation of special places where Russian citizens could freely express their opinions; the implementation of electoral reform, the abolition of the majority system, and the holding of elections to the State Duma exclusively according to the proportional system; the introduction of the election of judges; the elimination of the division of Russia on the basis of nationality; the formation of thirty provinces in the country; the appointment of a leader as chairman of the government the party that won the State Duma elections; expansion of the powers of the State Council; subordination of the Central Bank to the State Duma.

In the field of economic policy, the LDPR program focuses on carrying out a set of measures: digitalization of the economy; prohibition of the sale of raw materials abroad; reduction of taxes in non-primary industries; introduction of a state monopoly on alcohol, sugar, tobacco and energy resources; return to public administration of large retail chains, energy companies and strategic enterprises; revision of the results of the privatization of factories and factories; implementation of import substitution policy; introduction of restrictions on the withdrawal of currency abroad; implementation of mass low-rise construction; reduction of interest rates on loans; introduction of a ban on the entry of migrant workers; creating conditions for the development of mass farming; reducing the cost of renting space for small businesses; reducing the number of inspections of small businesses.

In the field of social policy, the Liberal Democratic Party focuses on: improving the social and housing conditions of veterans of the Great Patriotic War; allocating free land plots to large families; returning the previous retirement age; raising pensions to at least three subsistence levels; reducing housing and communal services tariffs; setting the minimum wage in the amount of 20 thousand rubles; exemption from personal income tax if wages a fee of no more than 30 thousand rubles; an increase in the tax on super-incomes for the rich; exemption from taxes for businesses in the field of education, science and production; the abolition of the Unified State Exam and the OGE; a threefold increase in basic salaries for doctors; the return of free healthcare.

In the field of rulemaking, the Liberal Democratic Party proposes: to criminalize the embezzlement of state funds for the creation of Russophobic media; to repeal Article 282 of the Criminal Code; to lift the moratorium on the death penalty for heads of organized crime groups, pedophiles, terrorists, drug traffickers and maniacs; to allow citizens to use weapons for self-defense; to deprive officials convicted of corruption of pensions and to impose liability for them in the form of Russian Russian Federation; confiscation of property; adopt laws: "On the protection of the Russian language", "On state support for the Russian people", "On Russian national self-government", "On the support of youth leisure centers", "On the revival of children's and youth culture", "On the production of cheap cars for youth", "On the introduction of youth quotas for jobs (at least 10%)", "On career guidance"; "On the confiscation of a car from drunk drivers".

In the field of international relations, the following measures can be identified: the peaceful return of the territories of the former USSR; the cessation of debt cancellation to other countries; the dissolution of NATO and the creation of the Armed Forces of Europe without the participation of the United States; the signing of the Charter of the Historical Assessment of World War II with the European states; the introduction of a visa-free regime for businessmen of the SCO, APEC and BRICS countries; the unification of trade and economic the CIS and SCO spaces.

Despite its openly populist nature, the LDPR program did not find a wide response among Russian voters: the party scored 7.55% in the federal district and took fourth place, behind United Russia (49.82%), the Communist Party (18.93%), Just Russia – For Truth (7.46%), and ahead of only the debutant in the political arena, represented by the New People party (5.32%).^[14] It is noteworthy that during the 2016 parliamentary elections, the Liberal Democratic Party received 13.14% of the vote. At the same time, the LDPR lost to only two parties in 2016.: United Russia (54.20%) and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (13.34%), significantly ahead of the Just Russia – For Truth party (6.22%). In other words, following the results of the last election campaign, the LDPR lost 42% of its electorate.

The weak result of the elections to the lower house of parliament gave reason to talk about the crisis of the Liberal Democratic Party. In particular, the failure of the party is explained by the support of the pension reform, which is unpopular among the people, and also because of the scandal surrounding the criminal case against a prominent LDPR figure, the governor of the Khabarovsk Territory, S.I. Furgal. ^{[6, p. 483]}

Without a doubt, an important milestone in the history of the Liberal Democratic Party was the death of the founder and permanent leader of the party, V.V.Zhirinovsky, in April 2022. At the same time, according to a number of political scientists, the LDPR does not have a political figure in its ranks who is equal or close in image potential to the former leader, as a result, the election of a new party chairman was forced. ^{[2, pp. 158-159],[3, p. 26],[16, p. 62],[17, p. 102]}. As a result, the fact of the change of leader led a number of analysts to declare an inevitable crisis in the Liberal Democratic Party. At the same time, various crisis scenarios were mentioned: for example, a split, her ousting from the political scene by other forces. ^{[1, p. 124]}

Discussions are currently underway on how much the departure of the leader can affect the role and influence of the Liberal Democratic Party. Undoubtedly, V.V.Zhirinovsky was one of the most extraordinary and charismatic political leaders, whose statements, often provocative and even scandalous, always had a vivid emotional coloring. ^{[21, p. 108]} It is natural that most of the texts about V.V.Zhirinovsky have a negative modality, while a positive assessment of his work is found much less often. ^{[13, p. 1292]}. Despite this circumstance, V.V.Zhirinovsky's actions have always caused a mixed but wide response in Russian society, ultimately affecting the popularity of the LDPR leader, which was a kind of basis for the image of the party itself. ^{[5, p. 139]} Thus, an incident that occurred during the 1999 parliamentary elections is indicative, when the Central Election Commission of Russia decided to refuse registration of the LDPR party list. V.V.Zhirinovsky was forced to urgently create members of the Liberal Democratic Party, as well as activists of the Russian Union of Free Youth (RSSM) and the Party The new electoral bloc, the Zhirinovsky Bloc, which was allowed to take part in the elections and eventually, gaining 5.98% of the vote, overcame the five percent barrier and passed to the State Duma, forming a faction of 17 deputies. Thus, V.V.Zhirinovsky managed to create a personal brand that ultimately influenced the electoral successes of the Liberal Democratic Party. ^{[4, p. 139]} At the same time, being a leader-type party, the LDPR became a hostage to its historically established image: with Zhirinovsky's departure, the party lost its main political brand.

In May 2022, at the XXXIV LDPR Congress, L.E.Slutsky was elected the new chairman of the party. On February 21, 2024, he presented his election program with the title "The Zhirinovsky case is alive!". ^[7] According to political scientists, the reference to V.V.Zhirinovsky was an attempt by L.E.Slutsky to save the electorate by appealing to the image of the late leader. ^{[10, p. 18]}

In the field of state-building, L.E.Slutsky considers the following to be a top priority: increasing the pace of the offensive within the framework of the SVR; reforming the state, including new regions; redistributing financing and writing off debts to Russian entities.

In the field of economic policy, the new leader of the Liberal Democratic Party proposes: to reorient the construction industry to low-rise buildings; oblige the government not to change the rules of the game for small businesses more than once a year.

In the field of social policy, it is proposed: to equalize the standard of living in the regions with the Moscow standard of living within six years; to create a social housing fund of one million apartments; to compensate depositors of the USSR.

In the field of rulemaking, L.E.Slutsky calls for: to review the system of taxes and financing of expenditures; to adopt a law on the introduction of a zero tax rate for low-income citizens; to introduce a progressive scale of taxation; to adopt a law "On fair prices"; to triple the rates on loans in microfinance organizations.

In the field of foreign policy, L.E.Slutsky's program is extremely concise: he only proposes to stop writing off debts to other states.

According to the results of the presidential election, L.E.Slutsky scored only 2.2% and took the last, fourth place, missing not only the current president V.V. Putin, who scored 87.28%, but also the candidate from the Communist Party N.M.Kharitonov (4.31%), as well as the candidate from the New People party V.A.Davankov (3.85%). ^[15] It should be noted that during the 2018 presidential elections, LDPR candidate V.V.Zhirinovsky took third place in an unofficial report, gaining 5.65% of the vote, passing only V.V. Putin (76.69%) and Communist Party candidate P.N.Grudinin (11.77%), and overtaking most other politicians: candidate from the Civil Initiative K.A. Sobchak (1.68%), candidate from the Yabloko Party G.A.Yavlinsky (1.05%), candidate from the Party of Growth B.Y.Titov (0.76%), candidate from the Party of Communists of Russia M.A.Suraikin (0.68%) and candidate fromOf the Russian National Union" by S.N.Baburin (0.65%). Nevertheless, the results of the presidential election gave L.E.Slutsky a reason to declare that the Liberal Democratic Party had gone through "an inevitable crisis period due to the loss of its father, the leader," and finally steadily regained its feet, taking second place among the opposition parties instead of the Communist Party. ^[18] At the same time, observers note that during the upcoming 2026 elections to the LDPR State Duma, it will not be easy to overcome the five percent barrier. ^{[5, p. 139]}

As part of a comparative analysis of the election programs of the Liberal Democratic Party and L.E.Slutsky, the following aspects can be pointed out.

The volumes of the election documents are approximately the same: the volume of the LDPR program is 2,157 words, the program of L.E.Slutsky is 2,474 words.

Russian Russian Democratic Party's election program and L.E.Slutsky's program have devoted considerable attention to such issues as upholding the interests of the Russian people and other peoples of Russia; protecting the interests of the Russian world; the peaceful return of the territories of the former USSR to Russia; centralization of the country; and upholding Russia's interests in the foreign policy arena. In addition, in the program of L.E.Slutsky, a significant place is given to the conduct of ITS own.

At the same time, the programs of the Liberal Democratic Party and L.E.Slutsky have a number of differences.

Structurally, the LDPR program is clearly structured: it includes ten sections and consists of 100 points. At the same time, each section strictly corresponds to some area of public relations (for example, domestic policy, foreign policy, social policy, healthcare, economics, etc.). The LDPR program is specific, it contains clear program provisions, albeit purely declarative, even populist in nature (for example, provisions on restoring the previous retirement age, raising the Minimum wage, radical increase in pensions, etc.).

L.E.Slutsky's program, on the contrary, is more haphazard, emotional, vague, and sometimes even chaotic. The document consists of an introductory section and two parts: "The truth is that" and "By Word and Deed," which, in turn, are divided into separate paragraphs. In general, L.E.Slutsky's program can be characterized as a set of ideological mottos, propaganda slogans, and campaign slogans: "The whole world needs Russians," "People's work must be respected," "Without science, we die," "The strong must help," "Russia is more than Moscow!", "Everyone needs the truth."", "Final and speedy victory", "The poor should not pay taxes", "Return money to people", "Any revolution is evil", "At the state level condemn the policies of the Bolsheviks, Gorbachev and Yeltsin as anti—national", "Adopt an Act of historical reconciliation", "Protect traditional family values", "To support all the traditional religions of Russia." "To defend Christianity" and so on. There are many deliberately impossible, populist provisions in L.E. Slutsky's program (for example, a provision on equalizing the standard of living in the regions with Moscow or on compensating depositors of the USSR). Another distinctive feature of L.E.Slutsky's program is the appeal to the authority of V.V.Zhirinovsky – the name of the former party leader is mentioned four times in the program.

It is advisable to supplement the comparative analysis with the results of content analysis.

The semantic analysis of both documents was carried out using the Advego online SEO service (https://advego.com/text/seo /)

Table No. 1. The list of the twenty most common words in the LDPR election program for the 2021 parliamentary elections.

Table No. 2. The list of the twenty most common words in the election program of L.E.Slutsky in the presidential elections of 2024.

The most frequently used word in both programs is "Russia" (in the LDPR program it is used 22 times, in the program of L.E.Slutsky – 28 times). Obviously, both the LDPR and L.E.Slutsky deliberately emphasize the word "Russia", emphasizing the civic-patriotic, statist, national, and sovereign nature of their election programs. Other most frequently used "statist" terms in both programs are the words "country", "region", "citizen". The LDPR program also pays attention to socio-economic issues, as evidenced by the terms "business", "tax", "economy", "free", "enterprise". Other terms used in the party's program include the words "Russian" (seven times), "housing", "politics", "development" (six times), "budget", "government", "state", "law", "international", "party", "production" (five times). Among the repeated expressions in the LDPR program are the following: "the peoples of Russia", "authorities", "adopt a law", "interest-free loans", "The Great Patriotic War", "parenting", "wages", "representative authorities", "conscription", "regions Russia", "The Russian Empire" (twice each).

Among the most common terms in L.E.Slutsky's program, it is necessary to single out the words "victory" and "military" – this circumstance is due to the candidate's support for the implementation of his own. Considerable attention is also paid to socio-economic issues in the program, as evidenced by the frequency of use of the terms "business", "labor", "ruble", "science". Among other terms used in the candidate's program, the words "state", "scientist", "Russian" (six times), "world", "people", "Homeland", "Russian" (five times) can be distinguished. Russian russians are among the repeated expressions in Slutsky's program: "military operation", "yesterday's pseudo-patriots", "difficult geopolitical situation", "for the sake of defending the Motherland", "traitors to the Motherland", "sow discord within Russia", "Russian people", "Russian weapons" (twice).

Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that the following values are proclaimed in the election programs of the Liberal Democratic Party and L.E.Slutsky: statism, patriotism, conservatism, nationalism, and anti-globalism. The programs focus on supporting domestic entrepreneurship, reducing the bureaucratic burden on business, social justice, support for low-income segments of the population, and health protection. At the same time, it should be noted that many of the provisions of both the LDPR election program and L.E.Slutsky's program are deliberately declarative, populist and sloganeering in nature.

conclusion

For more than thirty years of its existence, the LDPR has firmly established itself on the right, nationalist and conservative flank of the Russian political spectrum. At the same time, the LDPR itself positions itself as a centrist party, whose slogan is "We are neither with the left nor with the right."^[12] According to some researchers, ideologically, the LDPR is the bearer of a center-right, patriotic and anti-Western ideology. ^{[5, p. 139]}, and in the LDPR program such features as anti-communism, radicalism, nationalism, patriotism, utopianism, rationalism coexist. ^{[19, p. 116]} At the same time, many slogans were included in the LDPR program and the program of L.E.Slutsky in order to attract not only the target audience, but also and representatives of other social groups. Declaring itself a centrist party, the LDPR uses slogans: "We are for Russians, we are for the poor!", "There should be no hungry, homeless, unemployed in Russia!", "The rich should pay more and the poor less," etc.,^[12] which look like an attempt to "play" on the electoral field of their potential competitors, primarily parties of the left political spectrum: "Rodina", "Party of Pensioners", "Fair Russia – For the Truth" and others.

However, as the result of the parliamentary election campaign in 2021, as well as the outcome of the presidential elections in 2024, shows, this strategy did not pay off – currently, the Liberal Democratic Party is increasingly shifting to the periphery of the political process. Of course, since the LDPR arose and functioned as a pronounced party of the leader type, and from the moment the party was formed until April 2022, its permanent chairman was V. V. Zhirinovsky, who determined the ideological foundations of the movement ^{[20, p. 128]}, and the departure of the leader could not but affect the popularity of the entire party. At the same time, the results of the recent parliamentary and presidential elections suggest that the LDPR's popularity is declining, and the party has exhausted its potential as a "systemic opposition" party, which calls into question its prospects during the upcoming parliamentary elections.