The electoral situation in Cisbaikalian districts during the all-Russian vote of 2020
P.L. POPOV, A.A. CHERENEV, O.V. EVSTROPIEVA, A.V. BARDASH
V.B. Sochava Institute of Geography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Irkutsk, Russia
Keywords: Cisbaikalia, protest electoral behavior, environmental restrictions, amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, ethnic voting, local self-government
Abstract
This article is devoted to the problem of the conditionality of the results of the All-Russian vote on the issue of approval of amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation in the Baikal territories having environmental restrictions on economic activities. The study revealed a heterogeneity of the electoral behavior of the population at the district and regional levels. An analysis of the results of the All-Russian vote made it possible to determine that the level of support for the governmental initiative in the Republic of Buryatia is much higher than in Irkutsk oblast. The main ecological and economic prerequisites for the formation of local positive and negative public consensus regarding amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation are considered. Using the example of the Olkhonskii district of Irkutsk oblast where voters did not approve of the proposed amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, it is shown that environmental and socio-economic factors, in aggregate, can prevail over socio-cultural ones and cast doubt on the established stereotypes associated with ethnic voting. It is noted that the increased voter turnout in the Olkhonskii district has become an expression of protest electoral behavior, whereas an increased support for the state initiatives is characteristic for the national formations of Russia in general, and for the ethnically similar municipal districts of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in the Baikal region in particular. The place of the tourism industry in the economic sector of a district is considered. It was found that tourism, as one of the decisive modern directions of development of the Baikal territories and almost the only source of livelihood for the local population, has a high potential for involving territories, which is significantly limited in the conditions of the central ecological zone of the Baikal natural territory. The perception of the amendments introduced to the Basic Law of the country as a source of further deepening of environmental and economic contradictions, has become the cause of political tension and, as a result, a negative electoral behavior.
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