Translated material
Izmestyev's axiom
Russian senators are defenseless against pressure from the executive branch
On Wednesday, the Federation Council prematurely terminated the powers of Igor Izmestyev, a member of the upper house from the State Assembly (kurultai) of Bashkiria, at his personal request. Mr. Izmestyev was forced to resign by Bashkir United Russia deputies, who “unexpectedly” found out that the senator, in parallel with his work in the upper house, was engaged in commercial activities . Theoretically, the Federation Council might not have listened to the State Assembly of Bashkiria and not let the Bashkir representative go without a fight, but Igor Izmestyev himself “listened to” his colleagues. Now law enforcement agencies can ask him all the questions that they have accumulated.On November 30, the parliament of Bashkortostan prematurely terminated the powers of its representative in the Federation Council. The decision was made by an overwhelming majority - 89 out of 97 deputies voted in favor, one abstained, and seven parliamentarians did not take part in the vote. Moreover, the whole procedure took several minutes. The recall of the senator was initiated by deputies of the United Russia faction (Mr. Izmestyev is a member of the party in power) of the State Assembly. They accused him of violating the law on the status of a senator. According to the statements of the Bashkir United Russia members, Mr. Izmestyev is engaged in commercial activities , in particular, he is the head of Brock Trade Oil LLC.
It is unlikely that the Bashkir deputies received information about the entrepreneurial activities of their representative only after five years of Igor Izmestyev’s senatorship. It is believed that the resignation was caused by information about the senator’s involvement in several high-profile criminal cases. In particular, to the case of tax evasion at Ufa refineries in 2001 with the help of two companies registered in the offshore zone of Baikonur - Bort-M and Korus-Baikonur , a subsidiary of Mr. Izmestiev’s Korus-Holding. In addition, in November, the Moscow City Court accepted the criminal case of the so-called “Kingisepp group of killers,” which included Alexander Pumane . At the same time, the media reported that the brother of the head of the group, Sergei Finagin, Mikhail, headed the security service at the Korus-Holding company. According to a Vremya Novostey source in the administration of the President of Bashkortostan Murtaza Rakhimov, the Bashkir authorities persistently asked the administration of the President of Russia to initiate the recall of the senator.
Igor Izmestyev has represented the Bashkir parliament in the Federation Council since 2001. According to the recently adopted law on the status of a member of the Senate, the final decision on his recall has the right to be made only by the Federation Council itself, in which the senator could appeal the decision of the State Assembly of the republic. The law allows only the chairman of the chamber to initiate the early resignation of a senator.
The Federation Council had already gotten used to Senator Izmestyev and tried to support him. The vice-speaker of the chamber, Alexander Torshin, even before the meeting of the State Assembly, sent a telegram to Ufa, in which it was proposed to provide Igor Izmestiev with the opportunity to personally attend the meeting. In his letter, Mr. Torshin told the Bashkir deputies that “information about the alleged conduct of I.V. Izmestyev’s commercial activities are not confirmed by the Federation Council.” Then, in a television interview, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov also confirmed that “all current members of the Federation Council do not solve the problems of their business structures.”
Indeed, Mr. Mironov has already fired all the “suspicious” senators. Let us recall that in May of this year, the chairman of the Federation Council unexpectedly sent to the regions proposals for the early recall of four members of the Federation Council - representative of Primorye Igor Ivanov, representative of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Boris Gutin , member of the Senate from Khakassia Arkady Sarkisyan and Nenets senator Alexander Sabadash . Moreover, the latter was dismissed with the wording “for entrepreneurial activities incompatible with the status of a member of the Federation Council.” Later, guided not by his own claims, but by FSB materials, the speaker also recalled the senator from Kalmykia Levon Chakhmakhchan . Moreover, not all legislative assemblies readily recalled their representatives - doubts about the correctness of Sergei Mironov arose among Primorye and Yamalo-Nenets deputies. They demanded from the speaker a clear explanation of the reasons for the recall. Now the Bashkir State Assembly has not provided clear explanations to Sergei Mironov himself.
Mr. Izmestiev simplified the task for the Federation Council and wrote a statement of his own free will. He became the second senator from Bashkiria to be replaced by local authorities. President of Bashkiria Murtaza Rakhimov replaced the representative of the highest executive body of state power of the republic in the Federation Council Rudik Iskuzhin with his namesake, deputy prosecutor of the republic Ramil Iskuzhin.
This rapid rotation of senators occurs against the backdrop of talk about the reality of the transition to the election of members of the Federation Council. For now, the method for electing representatives from the regions is unclear, but most likely it will require changing the procedure for recalling regional representatives. True, it is unlikely with the approach proposed by Speaker Mironov (he believes that for elections the governor is obliged to present at least two candidates, the legislative assembly - at least three or four; after that, on the same day as the elections to the local parliament, citizens will choose two of them by a simple majority of all proposed candidates) there will be fewer representatives of business structures in the upper house - it is their lobbying abilities that the regions often need most.