No money - no election

Speaking on the “open rostrum”, experts suggested that the regions actually buy direct governor elections. They formulate the proposal something like this: if the region is able to provide itself and it has enough money, it means that it has “matured” to hold direct elections of the head of the region. The rest is an appointment.

The next “open tribune”, which took place on January 24 with a very acute formulation of the topic “Representative nature of the Federal Assembly: Problems of Formation”, was not without overlays. It turns out that most guests came to a completely different discussion, which was called "political reform: results and trends." When and how the topic changed, it is not clear, but it is clear that the change passed by the attention of many guests of the event. Therefore, instead of discussing the draft new law “On the elections of deputies of the State Duma” that you don’t have to particularly do not be brought to the Duma, which you don’t really criticize the final text (it is now being finalized by the CEC of Russia), no one has yet seen, experts and politicians have been actively expressed according to all changes in the electoral legislation that have occurred recently.

Critics during the conversation also got the new rules for registering political parties (it is not clear how to make a ballot at the same time to blocks and dozens of parties), and recently returned by direct elections of governors (the municipal filter contradicts the concept of direct expression of voters), and the issue of unhustity of the Federation Council (all who expressed it, supported the long time ago by Sergei Mironov about Council elections without changing the Constitution). But most of all, critics fell into the bill adopted on Tuesday in the first reading on the selective cancellation of the governor's elections.

Specifically, experts and politicians criticized the possibility of canceling direct elections of the head of the subject stipulated by the bill in almost any region of Russia. All dissatisfied converged in one: since this bill is adopted, then this issue must be regulated. But how?

In the peak of the previously sounding proposals to cancel the elections only in those regions where more than one nationality lives in the amount of more than 17% of the population (this deputy Vladir Pligin reasonably remarked that in all regions then nationality will immediately begin to recalculate), a proposal to prove the regions to prove their financial maturity. That is, in fact - to buy direct elections of governors.

Vladislav Inozemtsev

The first with such an idea on the “Open Tribun” was the director of the Center for Research at the post -industrial society Vladislav Inozemtsev.

“If we really think to limit the possibility of direct elections of governors for certain territories, then we should not pay attention to the number of nationalities living in this territory. Because so we really humiliate the citizens of the Russian Federation [hinting that they are not civilized enough for elections]. I think we should turn to the economic characteristics [subject]. It's no secret that we have deeply subsidized regions. For example, the budget of Ingushetia dates from the budget of the Russian Federation by 85%. Maybe in such a situation it makes sense to raise the question of direct presidential administration, ”Inozemtsev said.

According to the expert, the “economic moment” may be the only criterion for the emergence of a “special” attitude to the region.

Leonid Polyakov

This idea was supported by several experts at once. So, for example, the head of the general political science of the Higher School of Economics Leonid Polyakov, who advocated the Inozemtsev, said that his colleague "literally took out this idea from his mouth." And the President of the Russian Association of Political Science, Professor MGIMO Oksana Gaman-Golutvin, said that the economic factor, in particular, indicates the electoral maturity of the regions.

So, judging by the expert activity, we will see the amendment to the second reading of the bill on the selective cancellation of the governor's elections. Although it looks even more “dragon”, since there are only 7 national republics in the North Caucasus, and about 50 donors in Russia.

But there is another conclusion that can be made from these proposals. Politicians and experts in the soul have already reconciled with the possible immediate abolition of the governor’s elections and dutifully discuss the details.

And therefore, the speeches of the plenipotentiary representative of the Russian government in the highest ships of Mikhail Barschevsky (“Let’s at least a little to live with the laws already adopted”) and in the past of the leading political technologist of the Kremlin Gleb Pavlovsky (“People lose confidence in the authorities constantly changing the rules of the game. Let's at least resign a short time from reforms”) are unlikely to be heard. And sorry.