Sequestration of the left

There is a whiff of elections on Okhotny Ryad

Pro-presidential factions began active preparations for the elections of the next Duma by strengthening their hardware positions in the current Duma. It is difficult to explain with anything other than pre-election preparations the reshaping of internal powers that will take place today at the instigation of the Duma majority - the “alliance of four” led by the Unity faction. According to the centrists, the Communist Party faction, whose representatives so far head 10 of the 28 Duma committees, will have to lose 8 portfolios today (see table) . The centrists decided not to change the communist speaker (however, Gennady Seleznev does not intend to abandon his comrades-in-arms and will complain to the president).

True, the topic of the upcoming elections is unlikely to be heard today at Okhotny Ryad. It did not sound yesterday either, when the Duma Council submitted a draft resolution on the redistribution of portfolios to today's meeting of the chamber, without giving the deputies the three days that the regulations set aside for a thorough familiarization with any project. The leaders of the “alliance” assured yesterday that portfolios are being taken away from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation to improve legislative work: so that the communists “do not sabotage presidential bills,” explained the head of the Duma Committee on Rules Oleg Kovalev (Unity). The deputy chairman of the Yabloko faction, Sergei Ivanenko, spoke about “restoring justice,” which, in his opinion, the centrists neglected two years ago, agreeing to “conspire with the communists” (“To Yabloko, which does not have a single portfolio, the centrists are ready to cede the committee on education). Only the deputy chairman of the SPS faction, Boris Nadezhdin, spoke about the elections, for whom the current redistribution is a “center-right conspiracy” that replaced the “center-left conspiracy” of two years ago.

Mr. Nadezhdin, in particular, is confident that now that the Duma Committee on Social Policy leaves the left for the command of the right, the communists will not have the opportunity to push through various populist bills (on increasing pensions, benefits for veterans), on which they could make money during the election campaign. glasses.

The left minority is really losing advantages that would be useful to it in the election race (its parties usually start a year before the elections). It is up to the chairman of the Duma committee to determine which bills will be considered urgently and which ones will be slowed down or even shelved. A year before the elections, it is important that the bill reaches discussion at the plenary session, and it does not matter at all whether the chamber approves it or not. If he approves, it will be possible to report this to the voter as his own merit. If he doesn’t approve, it’s even better: he can use it to criticize his election rivals. The left minority will no longer have such a resource.

But it is unknown whether the right-wing minority will have this resource. The hardware innovations of the centrist majority are not limited to today's redistribution of portfolios. Next up in the plans of the “alliance” is the replacement of the head of the Duma apparatus and, therefore, the replacement by “our own” of the entire apparatus that the current Duma inherited from the previous, “red” Duma. In addition, the “alliance” is developing a scheme for accelerated consideration of bills, according to which public discussions in the Duma are not provided. And discussions for the right are the only opportunity to express their position, since all the media report in detail about the Duma debates. In other words, the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko risk becoming part of the same “managed democracy” that they criticized during the entire two years that the current Duma lived under the rules of the “center-left conspiracy.” “The center-right conspiracy” does not abolish “managed democracy,” as Mr. Ivanenko and Nadezhdin, and does not in any way address the problem of guarantees of minority rights.

But without such guarantees, today’s hardware gain will not bring any dividends to the “alliance of four” in the elections, independent deputy, deputy chairman of the Duma budget committee Oksana Dmitrieva told a Vremya Novostei newspaper correspondent. The minority, in her opinion, is “like a sieve” that does not allow “undeveloped, low-quality” projects to gain the force of law. “Poor quality” laws, according to her observations, are already turning voters who are “forced to live by these laws” against the “alliance.”

In fact, having taken full control of the lower house, the pro-presidential factions took upon themselves responsibility for all documents that will henceforth come out of Okhotny Ryad. No one in Russia can guarantee the quality of the legislative flow, if only because in recent years the most important laws have been adopted in terrible haste. Previously, all shortcomings could be attributed to the left - now we will have to look for other reasons. Or try to eliminate defects.


Transition of Duma portfolios from left to right

Duma committees	Section-2000	Redistribution project-2002
By law	Pavel Krasheninnikov, SPS	Pavel Krasheninnikov, SPS
For state construction*	Anatoly Lukyanov, Communist Party of the Russian Federation	Valery Grebennikov, OVR
On labor and social policy*	Valery Saikin, Communist Party of the Russian Federation	Andrey Selivanov, SPS
On budget and taxes	Alexander Zhukov, “Regions of Russia”	Alexander Zhukov, “Regions of Russia”
For credit institutions and financial markets	Alexander Shokhin, "People's Deputy"	vacancy of "People's Deputy"
On economic policy and entrepreneurship*	Sergey Glazyev, Communist Party of the Russian Federation	Georgy Tomchin, SPS
By property	Vladimir Pekhtin, Unity	Viktor Pleskachevsky, Unity
For industry, construction and high technology*	Yuri Maslyukov, Communist Party of the Russian Federation	vacancy "Regions of Russia"
Energy, transport and communications	Vladimir Katrenko, Unity	Vladimir Katrenko, Unity
On defense	Andrey Nikolaev, “People's Deputy”	Andrey Nikolaev, “People's Deputy”
Security	Alexander Gurov, “Unity”	Alexander Gurov, “Unity”
International Affairs	Dmitry Rogozin, "People's Deputy"	Dmitry Rogozin, "People's Deputy"
On CIS affairs and relations with compatriots	Boris Pastukhov, OVR	Boris Pastukhov, OVR
For federal affairs and regional politics*	Leonid Ivanchenko, Communist Party of the Russian Federation	Victor Grishin, OVR
On local government issues	Vladimir Mokry, Unity	Vladimir Mokry, Unity
On the rules and organization of the work of the Duma	Vasily Volkovsky, “Unity”	Oleg Kovalev, “Unity”
On information policy	Konstantin Vetrov, LDPR	Konstantin Vetrov, LDPR
Health and Sports	Nikolay Gerasimenko, "People's Deputy"	Nikolay Gerasimenko, "People's Deputy"
By education and science*	Ivan Melnikov, Communist Party of the Russian Federation	Alexander Shishlov, "Yabloko"
Women, Family and Youth Affairs*	Svetlana Goryacheva, Communist Party of the Russian Federation	vacancy of the Agricultural-Industrial Group
On agricultural issues*	Vladimir Plotnikov, Agricultural and Industrial Group	Gennady Kulik, OVR
On natural resources and environmental management	Alexander Belyakov, Unity	Alexander Belyakov, Unity
On ecology	Vladimir Grachev, Unity	Vladimir Grachev, Unity
On affairs of public associations and religious organizations	Viktor Zorkaltsev, Communist Party of the Russian Federation	Undefined vacancy
Nationalities Affairs	Valentin Nikitin, Communist Party of the Russian Federation	vacancy of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
Committee on Culture and Tourism	Nikolay Gubenko, Communist Party of the Russian Federation	vacancy of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
On problems of the North and Far East	Valentina Pivnenko, "People's Deputy"	Valentina Pivnenko, "People's Deputy"
Veterans Affairs	Viktor Kulikov, OVR	Viktor Kulikov, OVR

* Positions that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the farmers are losing.

Victor KHAMRAEV