The parliament of the republic abandoned secret voting

At the next session, the Parliament of Bashkortostan will amend its own regulations, providing for the introduction of open voting in the Kurultai. The parliament says that in this way they strive to increase the transparency of parliamentary decision-making. Experts, however, associate the innovation with an attempt by the local administration to control deputies.

The initiator of the amendments to the regulations of the parliament of Bashkiria was, as Kommersant was told in the secretariat of the Kurultai, the State Building Committee. He proposed adopting the new edition of the regulations in the first reading at the next session, while the issue was added to the committee agenda at the last moment: it was not initially included in the draft that was sent out to the media. Amendments are being made to the article regulating the voting procedure and decision-making in the Kurultai. Until now, decisions were made by “open or secret voting,” and the names of voters were not allowed to be recorded when counting votes by the electronic voting system. In some cases, by decision of deputies, a roll-call vote could be held. Now all decisions will have to be made by open roll-call vote, unless secret voting is provided for by “separate laws of the republic.”

The Secretariat of the State Assembly explained to Kommersant that a similar voting procedure is in effect in Tatarstan, the Moscow and Tyumen Regional Dumas and other constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Deputy Chairman of the State Construction Committee, United Russia member Rustam Ishmukhametov, explained the amendments by the desire to make the voting results in the Kurultai public and accessible to voters. He cited the example of the official website of the State Duma, “where any visitor can see how this or that deputy voted.”

Ex-deputy of the Kurultai, secretary of the Bashkir republican committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Shabaev did not remember that “any issue was voted on openly in parliament.” “The electronic system was always turned on, voting was secret by default,” he said and suggested that open voting should “increase party factional discipline, primarily in the ranks of the party in power.”

Experts believe that the regional administration, with the help of the amendments, is trying to increase personal control over deputies. Managing partner of the consulting company Sovetnik, political strategist Vladimir Barabash said that “the introduction of an open voting system should lead to greater control of the parliament.” “If under Rustem Khamitov’s predecessor, Murtaza Rakhimov, the list of future deputies was unofficially approved by the authorities and the behavior of the State Assembly was predictable, then I would not vouch for the monolithic nature of the future composition of the parliament (elections will be held in September - Kommersant ). There is no monopoly on power in the republic today. who doesn't have it." In turn, political scientist Alexander Kynev noted that in the current convocation of the Bashkir parliament, one party is actually represented - United Russia - and there is no competition. “The change in the regulations can be regarded as preparation for the next convocation, where there will certainly be competition and pluralism, in order to more accurately control the voting of its deputies,” says Mr. Kynev. He noted that “internal discontent in regional parliaments is growing” and “small riots will happen more and more often.”

Rustem Khamitov's press secretary Artem Valeev told Kommersant that changing the parliamentary voting procedure was "an initiative of the deputies themselves" and "this issue was not discussed in the presidential administration."

Arthur Asafiev, Natalya Pavlova, Ufa; Maria-Louise Tirmaste

Bashkir deputies take an example from the State Duma