The Tomsk City Duma did not deprive Yabloko of its mandate for errors in the income declaration

The Tomsk City Duma on Tuesday refused to prematurely terminate the powers of Yevgeny Kaverzin, a member of the Yabloko faction. The regional administration insisted on depriving him of his mandate, citing the absence of a number of data in the deputy’s income statement for 2021. Yabloko considered this demand a “politically motivated reprisal.” Mr. Kaverzin himself expects that now the regional administration or the prosecutor’s office will protest the decision of the city parliament in court.

As Kommersant previously reported, claims from the Tomsk Regional Administration Department for the Prevention of Corruption and Other Offenses prompted information about the income of Evgeny Kaverzin and his family members for 2021. In particular, the declaration, according to an audit conducted by the department, does not indicate three bank accounts, the deputy’s debt in enforcement proceedings and the Lexus car stolen in 2007.

Non-partisan deputy Kaverzin, elected to the City Duma from Yabloko in 2020 in single-mandate district No. 10, considered these comments insignificant. He was supported by Yabloko, according to which the claims presented cannot serve as a basis for deprivation of parliamentary powers. “This is an illegal and obviously politically motivated reprisal, and the party will defend its deputy, our lawyers are involved. We are responsible to our voters, we will defend the right of Tomsk residents to representation in the Duma, if necessary, in court,” said deputy chairman of the party Maxim Kruglov.

The discussion of the personnel issue took place on February 6 behind closed doors; the City Duma explained this by respecting the confidentiality of personal data. An attempt by independent deputy Igor Lyutaev to make the meeting open, since “Tomsk residents should know and remember how their deputies vote,” was unsuccessful: this proposal was supported by only ten deputies, with 14 against and four abstentions.

The discussion behind closed doors lasted more than an hour. As the press service of the City Duma told Kommersant, 16 votes (a majority of those present) were required to make a decision. However, only 14 deputies voted for Yevgeny Kaverzin’s early resignation, seven were against it, and nine abstained. But 17 people voted for issuing a warning to Mr. Kaverzin, which does not entail the termination of his powers, with three against and six abstentions. Let us note that the list of members of the Tomsk City Duma is 37 deputies. As Kommersant previously reported, two deputies of the current convocation have already been deprived of their mandates for absenteeism; in particular, 3 out of 4 deputies remained in the Yabloko faction. United Russia now has 11 mandates, 8 for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, 3 for A Just Russia, and two each for New People and the Liberal Democratic Party. The rest are independent single-mandate voters.

According to Kommersant, during the discussion the head of the Yabloko faction Vasily Eremin, deputies Elena Ulyanova (Growth Party), Inga Pervushina (A Just Russia) and Maxim Zabelin (Local Self-Government Group) spoke in support of Yevgeny Kaverzin during the discussion. “There are moments in the activities of the Tomsk City Duma when one becomes ashamed of the decisions of some colleagues. Today, when 14 deputies voted to remove Evgeniy Kaverzin’s parliamentary powers, I caught exactly this feeling,” Mr. Zabelin shared his impressions in his Telegram channel. “The main message was that we are probably not jurors, and it is quite difficult for us to evaluate certain facts,” concluded the acting director. O. Speaker Andrey Petrov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation). In his opinion, the correct way to resolve the issue would be to consider it in court.

“Many thanks to everyone who worried about me, understanding the absurdity of all the accusations,” Evgeny Kaverzin responded to the decision of his colleagues. He told Kommersant that Vasily Eremin made a proposal to limit himself to a warning. According to Mr. Kaverzin, the regional administration or the regional prosecutor’s office will challenge this decision of the City Duma in court. The regional administration did not promptly respond to Kommersant’s request whether such a lawsuit should be filed on Tuesday.

Valery Lavsky, Novosibirsk