B&T has an interesting point on the differences between officially-sponsored political movements in Russia vs. China. Briefly: only in China do the local candidates put in the work:
Your pan-democrat is the fellow with the big words about democracy; your DAB candidate is known in the neighbourhood for spending years ladling soup into grannies and talking ‘common sense’. That’s not how Nashi rolls.
I do wonder, though,
why
Nashi don’t do more of the local service provision. It’s the most reliable route to political support, and United Russia have the cash. Maybe they just don’t feel they need to put in that much effort.