Translated material
"Lame" Utkin
United Russia recognized the Stavropol parliament, but did not recognize its speaker
Yesterday the second meeting of the Stavropol Regional Duma took place, where the results of the elections on March 11 resulted in a fierce confrontation between United Russia and A Just Russia, which received almost the same number of mandates with the victory of the Socialist-Revolutionaries on the party lists. The work of the Stavropol Legislative Assembly of the new convocation began a week ago with a huge scandal: deputies of United Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party left the meeting. The dissatisfaction of parliamentarians was caused by the unfair, in their opinion, distribution of posts in the counting commission. A Just Russia deputy, former mayor of Stavropol, Mikhail Kuzmin, proposed for consideration by the legislative assembly a list that included three Just Russia members and one representative of other factions. In addition, the largest faction (“A Just Russia” has 28 out of 50 votes in the Stavropol Regional Duma) wanted its representatives to take the posts of heads of five or six committees, and the rest of the deputy associations would get only one each. The United Russia members, who gave themselves the leadership of all State Duma committees, did not like the same behavior of their opponents.After the representatives of the minority, which included United Russia, left the meeting room, the Just Russians approved their representative Andrei Utkin for the post of speaker. However, United Russia subsequently announced their intention to challenge the legitimacy of the meeting in court. They argued that the Duma's decisions were valid only if 34 deputies voted for them, and only 32 parliamentarians were present at the meeting. Thus, according to United Russia, United Russia member Yuri Gontar, who held this post in the previous convocation, remained the speaker. “A Just Russia,” in turn, insisted that all decisions taken were legal.
Yesterday it seemed the storm had passed. The refuseniks returned to parliament: 47 out of 50 deputies were present at the meeting. Fair Russia speaker Andrei Utkin presented parliamentarians with parliamentary badges, and thanked ex-speaker Yuri Gontar for “many years of conscientious work” and presented him with a bouquet of flowers. However, United Russia's appeal to recognize the last Duma meeting as illegitimate is in court.
“We did not return to the question of the legitimacy of the decisions made a week ago. We decided that the dispute between the parties should be resolved in court,” Dmitry Ededlev, head of the United Russia faction in the Stavropol parliament, told a Vremya Novostei correspondent. - It would be wrong for our voters to block the work of parliament. We work as usual, but we asked the court to resolve this dispute between a large group of deputies.”
“I believe that the deputy corps of the Duma of the Stavropol Territory should begin to work effectively as soon as possible,” Vladimir Katrenko, vice speaker of the State Duma and chairman of the Stavropol regional branch of the United Russia party, told Vremya Novostey. - I am sure that the common sense of the deputies will prevail over emotions. It's time to finish the hectic division of portfolios and get to work. In the end, people elected deputies, expecting that they would resolve issues of the region, pass laws, and work for the benefit of the region. All factions of the Stavropol Duma need to understand that they have to work together, which means they need to learn to negotiate and develop constructive solutions.”
Thus, United Russia did not want to repeat the Tuvan experience in the Stavropol Territory, where deputies from the Party of Life disrupted the quorum for six months and blocked the work of the highest legislative body.
At the same time, the governor of the Stavropol Territory, Alexander Chernogorov, expelled from United Russia after the party in power received only second place in the elections in his region, continues to accuse A Just Russia of seizing power. Yesterday he issued a statement in which he demanded that law enforcement agencies check the facts of violations of electoral legislation during the elections. According to the head of the region, the elections were distinguished by “an unprecedentedly high level of use of dirty technologies, the task of which is to achieve results at any cost.” “In my deep conviction, it was in the Stavropol region that an experiment was carried out to test an “innovative” model of seizing power. And law enforcement agencies did nothing to stop this. Believing in their impunity, having broken into the regional Duma with gross violations of the law, representatives of the A Just Russia party continue to grossly violate the law further: as they say, “lawlessness begets lawlessness,” the governor’s statement says.
Mr. Chernogorov argues that before considering the statements of some deputies on the issue of the legitimacy of the election of the governing bodies of the Stavropol Legislative Assembly, it is impossible to begin legislative work.