| Alexander Veshnyakov told senators about the new rules for selecting deputies On Thursday, the Chairman of the Central Election Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov, shared with senators on the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation his ideas about the “harmonization of electoral legislation.” A week ago, Mr. Veshnyakov visited the State Duma for the same purpose. The senators listened carefully to the head of the Central Election Commission and almost resignedly agreed.
Alexander Veshnyakov promises that already in November the Central Election Commission will propose to the president to introduce a bill to the Duma that would correct the work of the electoral system. In the meantime, Mr. Veshnyakov is “testing” the CEC’s proposals, discussing them with deputies and senators.
After parliamentary hearings in the State Duma, some positions of the proposed amendments changed. In particular, legislators from the lower house apparently convinced the head of the Central Election Commission that the concept of “party bloc” should be removed from legal reality. It is proposed to leave only the possibility of a political coalition of forces. That is, formally, according to the Central Election Commission, the Rodina bloc would not be able to participate in the Duma elections under the new system. By the way, earlier the head of the Central Election Commission was not so sure of the uselessness of the blocks.
Alexander Veshnyakov proposes to allow public organizations to observe the voting process and vote counting. And the head of the Central Election Commission proposes to issue a copy of the protocol, which the observer can receive at the polling station, without fail. Moreover, this copy will have to be certified by the regional commission in order to subsequently bear responsibility for its contents.
Apparently, fearing future liability, the secretary of the Moscow City Election Commission, Fayas Khalilulin, proposed in this case, in order not to waste paper, to reduce the volume of mandatory data in the protocol: “Why do observers need any other data besides the number of voters? And there are no photocopiers at the sites for printing such large formats.” But Alexander Veshnyakov, in response, gently hinted to his dull colleague that it was the ballot papers and protocols that were the main field for possible falsifications.
The Central Election Commission now proposes to increase state funding for parties that have entered parliament not by six times, as before, but by as much as ten. If the amendments are adopted, the party will receive 5 rubles for each vote. Currently, four parliamentary parties have the right to receive money from the state budget (United Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Rodina bloc), as well as parties that failed to get into the State Duma, but overcame the three percent barrier (Yabloko, " Union of Right Forces, Agrarian Party and Pensioners Party).
As before, the Central Election Commission proposes to increase the number of reasons why a deputy and a party can be deprived of a seat in the State Duma. In particular, if a candidate from the “federal troika”, the party that won the elections, does not want to leave his job, as happened last December with the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu or the mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov, his place in the Duma is taken away from the party and played out between other election participants.
Senators were much less interested in all these innovations than deputies, which is understandable. Therefore, there were no questions to the head of the Central Election Commission. Members of the Federation Council perked up only when the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Moscow Region, Sergei Kryzhov, asked Alexander Veshnyakov how the new procedure for electing governors correlated with certain provisions of the Constitution. Having understood from Mr. Veshnyakov’s words that these concepts correlate well, the senators calmed down. And the head of the Central Election Commission recalled that among the future amendments there is one that will facilitate the implementation of citizens’ voting rights. With a possible transition to electing deputies exclusively according to party lists, the CEC proposes to introduce into the law a provision that any citizen over 21 years of age, including non-party members, should have the right to propose his candidacy for the lists of candidates from any party. If ten party members support this initiative, it must be considered at a conference of the regional branch of the party. And then at the congress. Daria GUSEVA |
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