Several conclusions regarding recent political developments:
- The issue of war and peace is becoming a political tool for segmenting the electorate and subsequently consolidating several core voter groups.
This will become a dividing line similar to those that once existed over language, foreign-policy orientation, and so on.
In other words, political strategists have found a new way to segment society into electoral groups.
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Elections will most likely take place within the next year and a half; otherwise, such an early start would make little sense.
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Elections may be held before the war is fully over — and this is probably what will happen.
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A new development is that each contender for power will form two political camps: a “party of war” and a “party of peace”.
Formally, they will not be connected and may even publicly oppose one another.
Incidentally, this did not happen in the past: for example, the Party of Regions did not compete on the national-democratic political field, and vice versa.
This suggests that a large part of society is politically disorganised and demoralised, while the two active cores — the “peace” and “war” camps — are, on the one hand, relatively small and are no longer sufficient on their own to secure an election victory.
On the other hand, for the first time, it is impossible to predict with any certainty which way the “imitators” — the voters who ultimately determine the winner — will swing.
As a reminder, the core electorate accounts for up to 20%. The “imitators” account for 31%.
The “imitators” follow the political mainstream, meaning that they help secure victory for the ruling elites, but after elections they migrate towards the opposition. This is why, after elections, the opposition-minded part of society is always larger than the pro-government segment.
For the first time, however, no one knows which way these “imitators” will swing. They are kept close to the “party of war” by propaganda and loyalty to the authorities during wartime, while the deteriorating reality pushes them towards the “party of peace”.
There is no definitive answer as to which factor will prevail, or when.
The definitions should also be clarified.
The “party of war” consists of those who oppose any compromise and hope to defeat Russia outright in the course of an “endless war”.
The “party of peace” opposes an “endless war”, believing that the situation is deteriorating and that a compromise is necessary because things will only get worse from here.
- The war will ultimately be brought to an end by new political elites formed through the elections.
Those contenders for power who are unable to operate on both political fields — that is, to create their own “parties of war” and “parties of peace” — will find themselves on the sidelines of the political process.
