The opposition saves the lists – Newspaper Kommersant No. 31 (7476) of 20.02.2023

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP) are trying to stop the process of reducing the share of deputies elected on party lists in elections. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said that he discussed this topic with Vladimir Putin, and announced negotiations with United Russia (ER) and the presidential administration to develop a “more acceptable form.” The leader of the SRZP, Sergei Mironov, is also actively fighting for the preservation of party lists. EP says that they have not heard anything about any negotiations yet, and the expert doubts that the government will make concessions to the opposition even in gratitude for its support of the NWO.

At a press conference on February 15, Gennady Zyuganov spoke about the “very detailed” discussion at a meeting with the president on February 13 on the topic of reducing the number of “listed people”. “I said that it is not normal when there are only United Russia members in the city council in Tver … they, of course, do not reflect the interests of everyone. We agreed that in the near future we would hold talks with the leadership of United Russia and the presidential administration and work out a more acceptable form. In my opinion, an attempt to remove party lists is absolutely unconstructive and extremely dangerous: bandits will again climb, money bags – then you will have criminals, ”the leader of the Communist Party emphasized.

He also said that earlier, together with Sergei Mironov, he wrote a corresponding letter to the president. Mr. Zyuganov hopes that the presidential administration will respond to their comments. “An attempt to remove parties from the political arena, especially in conditions when maximum overall consolidation is required for victory, is playing along with the enemies, now, on the contrary, it is necessary to strengthen the political system. Volodin (Speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin.— “b”), by the way, understands this and quite effectively carries it out in the State Duma, ”added the communist.

The press service of the SRZP confirmed to Kommersant that in October 2022, Sergei Mironov and Gennady Zyuganov sent a letter to the president about “the actual transition to the majoritarian system, which takes place on the initiative of the United Russia and contrary to the position of most other parties.” “In the regions, elections on party lists are being reduced or completely canceled, such an “epidemic” covers the subjects where campaigns are coming every year. As a result, it comes to the point of absurdity, when, for example, in the elections to the Tver City Duma last year, all 25 out of 25 mandates are received by United Russia, and voters who support other parties are left without representatives. Such an undivided triumph of the United Russia monopoly leads to a decrease in the role of parties and voters, to the discrediting of the very idea of ​​elections and the degradation of the political system,” the press service conveyed the gist of the letter. Its authors suggested that the president support the initiatives of the parties to return to the mixed system in regional and municipal elections, when 50% of the mandates are distributed according to party lists and 50% to single-mandate constituencies. At a meeting with the president on February 14, Mr. Mironov did not raise this issue, since “priorities were given in favor of social issues of supporting citizens,” the party clarified.

Last week, the leader of the SRZP criticized on his Telegram channel the initiative of the head of Kalmykia, Batu Khasikov, to change the procedure for the formation of the republican parliament, which is still entirely elected by party lists. Mr. Khasikov, in response, referred to the opinion of the inhabitants of the region, who “repeatedly expressed their desire to personalize our People’s Khural, wanted to vote for local leaders close to them, for those who walk along the same roads with them, live in the neighborhood.”

It should be noted that opposition members have complained to Vladimir Putin about the problem of reducing party lists before. For example, in February 2021, at a general meeting, Zyuganov, Mironov, and the then LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky spoke about this to the president. Mr. Putin then agreed with them and said that he would “talk to the administration about this.”

Recall that the party quota in regional elections appeared in 2002, when, in order to strengthen the party system, the State Duma obliged legislative assemblies to distribute at least 50% of mandates according to lists. A decade later, the concept changed: under the pretext of “avoiding tough schemes launched from the center” and developing federalism, the Duma reduced the quota to 25% in 2013, and allowed federal cities to switch to a pure “majority” system. But only Moscow took advantage of this novelty, where since 2014 all deputies have been elected in single-member districts.

However, after the 2018 elections, which were difficult for the United Russia, a systematic reduction in the share of “listed persons” began in legislative assemblies. On the eve of EDG-2019, their number was reduced in the republics of Altai and Mari El, the Khabarovsk Territory and the Tula Region. In 2020, similar changes took place in the Kostroma region, before the 2021 elections – in Primorye, Amur, Lipetsk, Novgorod and Murmansk regions, and on the eve of the EDG-2022 – in Udmurtia, Krasnodar Territory, Saratov and Sakhalin regions. In 2023, the process of “departization” continued: the reform has already passed in the Rostov and Smolensk regions and is being prepared in Kalmykia, Khakassia and the Yaroslavl region. With the initiative to reduce the “listed” mandates, United Russia usually comes out, who talk about the need to “bring” the deputies closer to the voters. True, the right to switch to a pure “majoritarian system”, which the federal law on public authority adopted at the end of 2021 gave to all regions, has not yet been used by any of them.

At the municipal level, “departization” was even more radical. The law requiring at least half of the deputies to be elected from lists in cities and districts (previously the majoritarian system was mainly used there) was adopted in 2011, but it was canceled just two years later, which provoked a massive rollback to the old system. Already in the 2014 elections, out of 20 re-elected city councils of administrative centers, 14 were formed according to the majority principle. True, in 2015-2019, transitions to a pure “majority” became isolated, more often city councils simply changed the proportion in favor of single-members.

A new round of “departization” began in 2020, when party lists were abandoned in Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, Kostroma, Lipetsk, Magadan, Novosibirsk and Astrakhan. United Russia became the main beneficiary of the reform: for example, in Lipetsk, its candidates received 34 out of 36 mandates, and in Vladimir – 25 out of 25. Yaroslavl, Vladivostok and Tver. In the last elections, thanks to the reform, United Russia achieved a more than confident victory: in the Gorno-Altai City Council, it received 20 out of 21 seats, in Omsk – 35 out of 40, in the Yaroslavl municipality – 34 out of 38, in the city council of the previously protested Vladivostok – 23 out of 35.

When asked about contacts with the opposition about the fate of the party lists, a Kommersant source in the presidential administration replied that they “have not planned such negotiations yet.” Sergei Perminov, deputy secretary of the United Russia General Council, who is in charge of election campaigns in the party, also told Kommersant that he knows “nothing is known” about the allegedly planned negotiations on the fate of the party lists. He commented on the claims of the oppositionists as follows: “The decision on the transition from a proportional or mixed system to an exclusively majoritarian one is made by regional legislators. The reason in each case is individual and is based on traditions, majority opinion, inter-party agreements.” Mr. Perminov called United Russia’s victory in the Tver City Duma “the result of the high efficiency of the party in solving problems and achieving the trust of the residents of Tver.”

The head of the Petersburg Politics Foundation, Mikhail Vinogradov, sees no signs that the authorities are ready to abandon further simplification of the electoral system. In his opinion, the government does not feel indebted to the opposition parties, even as a thank you for their consolidation during the SVO.

Maria Makutina, Andrey Prakh