Donbass deputies can repeat – Kommersant

Deputies of the People’s Councils of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), elected during their self-proclaimed independence, will take an active part in the September elections. According to Kommersant’s estimates, more than 80% of the parliamentarians of Donbass are planning to fight for the mandate again – already as part of Russia. Most of them are expected to come from United Russia (ER). The Duma opposition will also have candidates from among the current deputies, but much less.

According to the website of the preliminary party voting (primaries) of the United Russia, 57 out of 93 current deputies, or 61%, intend to run for the elections to the People’s Council (NS) of the DPR from the party in power. In the National Assembly of the LPR, this figure is significantly higher: out of 50 parliamentarians, 45 (90%) immediately participate in the preliminary voting. In total, 289 people signed up for the primaries in the DPR, 206 in the LPR, that is, in both cases, every fifth participant is an active deputy.

Recall that the elections of the first convocations of the parliaments of the DPR and LPR as part of Russia will be held on September 10. They will be formed from 90 and 50 deputies, respectively, elected entirely according to the proportional system – according to party lists. Mandates will be given to candidates of those parties for which more than 5% of voters will vote. Elections under the majoritarian system (single-member constituencies) will not be held, since a significant part of the territory of Donbass is still under the control of the Ukrainian armed forces.

The People’s Council of the DPR in its current form has existed since September 2014, when the first elections were held in the self-proclaimed republic. The second convocation of the parliament (already by Russian standards – for a period of five years) was formed in 2018. At that time, there were no parties in the DPR, so the candidates ran from social movements – the “Donetsk Republic”, which is led by the current acting head of the DPR Denis Pushilin (72.4% of voters voted for the list), and “Free Donbass”, whose leader is the former Deputy Minister of Education of the DPR Vladimir Medvedev (26%). Now the first faction includes 68 deputies, the second – 25 deputies.

All the current leadership of the National Assembly of the DPR expects to go to the September elections from the United Russia. In particular, the speaker of the parliament, former people’s deputy of Ukraine from the Party of Regions Volodymyr Bidevka, vice-speaker Serhiy Prokopenko and head of the Donetsk Republic faction Valery Skorokhodov take part in the primaries. All three are deputies of the first convocation. The chairmen of 12 out of 17 NA committees also take part in United Russia preliminary voting.

Almost all of the 46 deputies of the “Donetsk Republic” who declared themselves for the primaries have already become members of the United Russia. The only exceptions are the former mayor of Makiivka Yuriy Pokintelitsa, as well as colonels of the People’s Militia of the DPR Konstantin Kuzmin and Alexander Kurenkov – they participate in the preliminary voting as supporters of the party in power. Members of the Free Donbass faction join the ranks of United Russia not so willingly: out of 11 deputies who showed up for the primaries, only five received a party card. Five more parliamentarians are supporters of United Russia, and one, former militiaman Pavel Danilov, is non-partisan.

Representatives of the former political force of Denis Pushilin, who now heads the republican unit of United Russia, take part in the primaries of United Russia noticeably more actively than their colleagues: 68% of the members of the “Donetsk Republic” faction and only 44% of the “Free Donbass” intend to run from the ruling party. The latter will become a kind of “incubator” for the parliamentary opposition, since five of its members will immediately go to the polls from the “Fair Russia – For Truth” (SRZP). This was told to Kommersant by State Duma deputy Dmitry Gusev, who oversees political issues in the party. Also, two members of the Free Donbass will be included in the list of the Liberal Democratic Party, Andrei Kramar, coordinator of its Donetsk cell, told Kommersant. In total, the Socialist-Revolutionaries will have six candidates from among the current NA deputies, the Liberal Democrats – five. But the Communist Party of the Russian Federation – not a single one. Despite this, the Communists will put up a “solid list”, in the head part of the list there will be, for example, “one of the founders of the DPR”, the second speaker of the National Assembly (from July to November 2014) Boris Litvinov, Yury Afonin, the first deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, told Kommersant .

In the LPR parliament, the situation is much simpler. Of the five current deputies who do not take part in the United Russia primaries, three will run for opposition parliamentary parties: Alexander Ermolenko – from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Andrei Tambovtsev – from the SRZP, Maxim Uvarov – from the Liberal Democratic Party. Whether there will be a “quota” of acting deputies for the “New People” is still unknown: the press service of the party did not answer the question of “Kommersant”.

The leadership of the Luhansk National Assembly, as in the case of the Donetsk one, counts on participation in the elections from United Russia. In particular, the speaker of parliament, secretary of the United Russia cell Denis Miroshnichenko, his deputies Dmitry Khoroshilov and Oleg Koval, as well as six of the seven chairmen of the committees, showed up for the primaries. All 45 participants in the preliminary voting from among the current deputies of the National Assembly of the LPR are members of the United Russia.

A source close to the leadership of the ruling party draws attention to the fact that it is still too early to judge the final configuration of the United Russia list by the participants in the primaries: anyone can show up, the question is who will win. At the same time, another factor can influence the difference in the activity of Donetsk and Luhansk parliamentarians, says the interlocutor of Kommersant: “Many of the deputies fought in the LPR, including Miroshnichenko. There is logic.”

Andrey Ash, Andrey Vinokurov