The State Duma offers to allow financing agitation against all

State Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov introduced to the Lower Chamber a draft amendments to the law "On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights", which allow the creation of electoral funds to finance agitation against all. This was reported by "Vedomosti". “With this bill, we are trying to protect both the count itself and the people who will campaign for it,” Gudkov explained the meaning of his initiative.

The deputy noted that after in early June, Vladimir Putin signed the law on the return of the column "against all" in the municipal elections, the contradiction, noted in 2005 in the decision of the Constitutional Court, returned to the legislation. The document states that, "if the federal legislator ... recognized the possibility of voting in the elections by filling out the column" against all "in the electoral ballot, he is obliged to resolve the appropriate election campaign." In this regard, the State Duma was ordered to "immediately take measures to resolve the issue of the procedure for citizens of the right to conduct election campaign against all candidates."

Uneneros Dmitry Vyatkin, deputy chairman of the Duma committee on constitutional legislation and state building and a representative of the Lower Chamber in the Constitutional Court, reacted to Gudkov’s initiative skeptical. “Since the count is introduced in local elections, it should not be adjusted at the federal level,” he remarked.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Constitutional Committee, Uneneros, Vladimir Pligin, expressed himself less definitely, saying that "you need to watch how this will happen in practice." He promised: "We will examine in detail the initiative of our colleague in connection with the decision of the Constitutional Court."

Gudkov himself clarified the publication that he issued his initiative to a separate bill precisely on the recommendation of Pligin. In this regard, he suggested: "Even if my bill does not pass, it is possible that unicorns will introduce something of their own in order to resolve this moment."