“If you planted potatoes, then you don’t need to dig them out in a week”

Since 2020, the founder of the Faberlic cosmetics company, entrepreneur Alexei Nechaev has been mastering his new role as a federal politician. And since 2021, when his New People party entered the State Duma, he has also been in the role of the head of the Duma faction, which has replenished the usual set of observers (ER, KPRF, LDPR, SR) for the first time in many years. Nechaev is ready to nominate a candidate for the presidential elections in 2024 (he does not give his last name), while flatly refusing to predict how the mood of the people and the landscape on Okhotny Ryad will change by 2026. But it is obvious that he has become fully accustomed to the current State Duma and is now ready from the podium explain to colleagues what the business needs. And vice versa, he uses his entrepreneurial experience behind the scenes. In an interview with Vedomosti, Nechaev told what he learned in two years of working with the crust of a State Duma deputy.

– We have about six months [после избрания в Госдуму] it took to adapt to how things generally work. Now we already understand that there are several mechanisms. The first one is [простое] introduction of a bill. For example, we introduced a bill on mining in Russia. The government and the relevant committee called it “unfinished” and rejected it. But a month later, another draft law appears, as if “modified”, which includes many of our provisions. In such cases, bills are usually introduced either by the government or United Russia. For us, authorship is not so important, it is important for us that ideas are realized.