Translated material
Stavropol exodus
In the regional Duma, the “Socialist Revolutionaries” are running over to the United Russia camp
The political conflict in the Stavropol Territory is gaining momentum. Last week, the United Russia faction in the regional Duma gained five new members at once. Moreover, three of them had previously left the A Just Russia faction, which became a new round in the confrontation between the local Socialist-Revolutionaries and United Russia.A year ago, in the regional elections on March 11, the Stavropol region became the only region in Russia where United Russia lost to Just Russia when voting on party lists. And taking into account the majoritarians, the Social Revolutionaries formed the largest faction in the regional Duma with a controlling stake in 27 of the 50 mandates, while United Russia had to be content with 15 deputy seats. However, a year later, the Stavropol election commission filed a lawsuit, demanding to retroactively cancel its own decision a year ago on awarding mandates to deputies who were on the “Socialist Revolutionary” list.
We are talking about ten parliamentarians, including, in particular, Olympic champion figure skater Elena Berezhnaya. The Electoral Commission demands that the people's representatives be demoted due to the allegedly revealed facts of bribery of voters by A Just Russia. Strict guardians of the law considered that the “Socialist Revolutionaries” were “bribing” the gullible electorate with an ordinary propaganda newspaper, the production and free distribution of which was paid for by the charitable foundation of Dmitry Kuzmin, the Stavropol mayor, a member of A Just Russia, who has been wanted for several months by the prosecutor’s office , who brought charges against the opposition mayor criminal charges.
Last week, on March 25, the Stavropol Regional Court accepted the statement of the regional election commission, and the hearing of the case is scheduled for April 9. In this electrified atmosphere, three “Socialist Revolutionaries” at once, it seems, could not withstand the nervous tension and decided to leave the ranks of the “A Just Russia” faction. After this, Sergei Fominov, Ivan Ulyanchenko and Sergei Sushkov sent their steps to the camp of “United Russia” together with Aidyn Shirinov, who had not previously been a member of any deputy associations, and Alexander Shiryaev, who, although he got into the legislative assembly on the list of “United Russia” , but was not previously a member of the faction. It is noteworthy that all three former “Socialist Revolutionaries” were elected not from a list, but from majority constituencies, that is, their mandates were not directly threatened by the hypothetical court decision. But, apparently, in the Stavropol region a course has been set for the final purge of the “justists” from the regional Duma.
The CEC refused to comment on the situation to the Vremya Novostey correspondent until the end of the process. Meanwhile, the chairman of the regional election commission, Boris Dyakonov, told Vremya Novostey that he estimates the chances of success “quite high.” “Otherwise we would not have gone to court,” he noted. “The transfer of deputies from one faction to another did not make any impact or impression on us; our position remains unchanged,” Mr. Dyakonov emphasized, avoiding further comments. It would be worth noting that Boris Dyakonov himself is a member of the party in power, and he took his current post last summer, when the regional electoral commission was formed, not without scandal, by the decision of the Central Election Commission. Otherwise, A Just Russia, which controls the legislative assembly, by participating in the formation of the election commission in accordance with the law, would have secured a numerical advantage not only in the Duma, but also in the commission.