Deputies will be deprived of their mandate for violating party discipline. As right-wing activist Mikhail Yemelyanov told Izvestia, on April 21, amendments will be made to the State Duma according to which the lower house of parliament will be able to terminate the powers of a deputy early on the recommendation of the faction in which he belongs. State Duma deputy from A Just Russia Ilya Ponomarev answered questions from presenters Maxim Mitchenkov and Natalya Zhdanova.

“Elections based on party lists presuppose that a deputy who has passed through them must carry out the party program and follow party discipline. But in all factions there are cases when deputies, having entered the State Duma under the auspices of the party, swearing allegiance to its program, begin to act against the position parties. Thus, they violate the party’s obligations to its voters. And the party should be able to get rid of them,” explains Mikhail Emelyanov.

M.M.: I think it’s no secret to anyone that you are probably the first candidate who may fall under this initiative. What do you think about this?

IP: The first, moreover, according to Emelyanov, the only one, which, of course, surprises me very much, because, generally speaking, I absolutely support the idea of an imperative mandate. I think it’s truly disgraceful when deputies promise one thing and then do something completely different. But just one small nuance is that your humble servant, Dmitry Gudkov and several other deputies of the “A Just Russia” faction continue to stand on the “A Just Russia” platform, with which it went to the elections, but regarding the majority of our faction, I am absolutely not sure about this .

N.Zh.: What was the reason? Protest voting in Crimea?

IP: Of course. That is, it has accumulated, on the one hand, yes. But Crimea, of course, is the main factor, because I don’t have many cases when my vote contradicts the position of A Just Russia.

M.M.: Ilya Vladimirovich, is there any other way to deprive a deputy mandate except by introducing appropriate amendments? Is this really necessary?

I.P.: They’ve already tried everything for me. They tried to initiate criminal cases and so on, but they only became convinced that this was impossible, there was nothing to show. Accordingly, we talked, tried in every possible way to smear the name in the media, but it didn’t come to the real deal. Now they just want to provide grounds for expelling them by direct vote of the State Duma.

N.Zh.: Do you think this bill is being written specifically for you and will not be applied to anyone else?

IP: Generally speaking, there was talk about an imperative mandate back in the last convocation, and I was always one of the main enthusiasts for such a mandate. Then United Russia refused to do this, because we constantly have defectors to United Russia, and in this convocation there are such, for example, Mr. Mitrofanov, Levin - the backbone of the current committee on information policy, who are working on these amendments against bloggers and etc. That is, in theory, they should be the first to be expelled from the State Duma, but there is no discussion about them.

Mm good. If a person, for example, leaves the party and becomes an independent deputy, then such sanctions cannot be applied against him?

IP: No, they can. What is the current legislation? You can leave the pariah; in fact, I left the party, but I remain in the A Just Russia faction, and according to the law you cannot leave the faction. What these amendments are trying to do is something that the faction itself can exclude, and if it excludes a person, then he thereby loses his mandate.

M.M.: Do colleagues from other factions support this initiative?

IP: This conversation recently began with Mr. Markelov from United Russia, who also started talking about the imperative mandate. On Monday I read the United Russia statement. They doubt the viability of this initiative, because the law cannot be selective, and if this decision is carried out, then their faithful allies like the same Mitrofanov will lose their mandates, otherwise the selectivity of the application of the law will be painfully obvious.

N.Zh.: So there is still a chance that this bill will not be adopted in the end?

IP: As we know from the “golden pretzels” case, in order to oust Gudkov, the party in power sacrificed five or six of its major businessmen. Just to remove a bright deputy. In this case, such a decision can also be made, but I don’t think that at the moment it is final.

Mm good. If this initiative is nevertheless adopted, what will it lead to? Will deputies really be prohibited from voting differently than the faction decides? What will be the consequences of this?

IP: There will be further consolidation of parliament. Let's leave four deputies with four mandates in proportion to the weight of the votes that the party received in the elections. Why then support all 450 people so that they spend taxpayers' money and so on? I believe that there should undoubtedly be a certain level of discipline in the party, but this, rather, should be the result of personnel selection at the stage of forming electoral lists. Communist Party of the Russian Federation, for example. It is almost impossible to find cases when a deputy votes against the decision of the Communist Party faction even in the current legislative system, but in A Just Russia this happens all the time, because the approach is completely different.

N.Zh.: So the main danger is that protest voting will disappear altogether?

IP: Of course. The deputies will become complete slaves of their parties and will ultimately depend on the party bosses, and not on their voters who voted for them.

“Deputies will ultimately depend on party bosses, and not on voters”