| The communists want to hold an anti-Putin referendum. But they won't succeed The communists are determined to hold a referendum, which the Kremlin took a lot of effort to block. However, now, to the questions about land and subsoil that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation planned to ask the population two years ago, new topics have been added - the latest initiatives of the authorities: monetization of benefits and the actual abolition of gubernatorial elections.
In the fall of 2002, just a year before the presidential and parliamentary elections, the communists started a referendum in order to ask the people’s opinion on the purchase and sale of land, increasing wages, and reducing tariffs for housing and communal services. However, the authorities were afraid of this explosive initiative, and six centrist factions urgently introduced to the Duma of the last convocation an amendment to the law “On Referendum”, prohibiting the holding of a plebiscite in the year of federal - that is, parliamentary and presidential - elections. The amendment was passed not without difficulty - in order to get the 300 votes required to approve the constitutional law, the chamber had to re-vote several times. But the Kremlin did not have a constitutional majority in the last Duma.
The communists decided not to give up and tried to challenge the amendment in the Constitutional Court, but to no avail. After the presidential elections, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation again took up organizing a referendum, but a presidential law immediately arrived, designed to make the act of expression of the people's will a pipe dream. If previously, in order to initiate a plebiscite, it was enough for a citizen, a group of citizens or a public association to form an initiative group of at least 100 people, now the initiative group must consist of regional subgroups created in more than half of the constituent entities of Russia, that is, at least in 45 regions with at least 100 people each. In this case, the signatures of all initiators (at least 4500) must be notarized. Then, to actually initiate a referendum, it is necessary to collect 2 million signatures.
However, the communists are confident that this time they will be able to outwit the Russian Central Election Commission, while adding pressing issues to those of the year before last.
“We have already repeatedly encountered technical difficulties related to how to properly register an initiative group and collect signatures during various election campaigns and we can imagine how to overcome them,” First Deputy Chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Central Committee Ivan Melnikov told a Vremya Novostei correspondent. - The main difficulty is related to the registration of referendum issues. There are a lot of opportunities to wrap up questions. If we launch the whole machine of organizing a referendum at once, they will immediately tell us that these issues are impassable, and we will end up with a blank shot. Therefore, we will first create a so-called initiative subgroup in one region and there we will work out referendum issues. First, we will work very seriously, with the participation of specialists, on the formulation of the referendum questions. Then the initiative group in one of the regions, in accordance with the law, will bring these issues to the regional commission of the subject of the federation, which is obliged to immediately notify the Central Election Commission. And the Central Election Commission, in turn, must give an opinion on the referendum issues within ten days. Probably, at the first attempt, the Central Election Commission will not agree with our questions and will make its own comments. But we will immediately assemble a new initiative group and adopt new formulations of questions taking into account these comments. I think in the end the Central Election Commission will have to agree with our formulation.”
The new law prohibits submitting to a referendum questions about the adoption and changes of the federal budget, which means that the problem of monetization of benefits will not be discussed with the people. However, the communists have a solution ready for this too. “This question can be formulated in such a way that it will not directly concern the budget. For example: “Do you agree that decisions to abolish benefits and replace natural benefits with monetary compensation should be made exclusively by referendum?” - noted Ivan Melnikov.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation intends to choose for its launching pad a region in which the local organization is strong enough and at the same time the conditions are unfavorable for the opposition. Perhaps the Yabloko party and Committee 2008, with whom the Communist Party of the Russian Federation already has experience of working together on a lawsuit in the Supreme Court to invalidate the results of the parliamentary elections, will join the cause of holding a referendum on Putin’s reforms. “If they do not agree with our issue on subsoil, let them campaign for one set of issues and against another,” Mr. Melnikov believes.
The Central Election Commission has not yet commented on the plans of the communists, which is understandable: no one has formally canceled the constitutional right of citizens to a referendum, although in fact it can be forgotten. As a last resort, even if we assume that the referendum takes place, the authorities always have the opportunity to “work” with its results. Ksenia VERETENNIKOVA |
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