What did the deputies of the new regions do after the September elections?

Last week, the parliaments of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), formed for the first time according to Russian standards, agreed on the appointment of heads of regional governments—Evgeniy Solntsev and Sergei Kozlov, respectively. In the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, representatives of the legislative authorities have not yet been able to do this: deputies of the legislative assemblies created “from scratch” deal with basic organizational documents and security issues.

The People’s Council of the DPR continues to update the regulatory framework of the republic in order to bring it into compliance with Russian legislation. Last week, laws were adopted on the regional government, the status of a deputy, municipal service, justices of the peace, the organization of regular transportation and other documents. In addition, deputies approved Evgeny Solntsev as Prime Minister of the DPR (he has held it since March 2023 after the transfer of former Prime Minister Vitaly Khotsenko to the post of acting governor of the Omsk region).

Members of the renewed People’s Council of the LPR dealt with similar issues. Sergei Kozlov, who had previously held it, was also confirmed in the post of republican prime minister; in addition, laws on the Commissioner for Human Rights, on land relations, local self-government, etc. were adopted.

But the legislative bodies of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, formed in contrast to the People’s Councils of the two republics “from scratch,” are still busy with basic organizational issues. In particular, Zaporozhye deputies managed to adopt only the charter of the region, the rules of the legislative assembly and the regulations on its apparatus, form committees, determine the number of deputy speakers, and also approve three laws – on the procedure for electing the governor, the procedure for publishing normative acts and the number of deputies working in a professional capacity. basis.

The Zaporozhye Legislative Assembly does not yet have its own website – adopted resolutions and laws are published on the regional government portal along with other official documents. Some information about the work of the regional parliament is published scatteredly on social networks by Governor Evgeny Balitsky, United Russia and other pro-government structures. According to a Kommersant source in the regional leadership, the situation is unlikely to change in the near future: the newly-minted body does not need publicity, since it carries serious risks. “Why do we need to advertise something? There is a strict rule: first we do it, then we tell it,” explains Kommersant’s interlocutor. For the same reasons, the security of a specific building has not yet been assigned to the parliament, he adds: “We gather wherever we have to. 40 absolutely pro-Russian people are a tasty target for the Ukrainians.”

The Kherson Regional Duma is now working in a similar way. On the portal of the governor and the regional government, only four documents approved by parliament are published: the charter of the region, the resolution on its adoption, the law on the procedure for electing the governor and the resolution on vesting the corresponding powers in Vladimir Saldo. However, in the social networks of individual deputies you can find information that the Duma has also already formed a presidium, committees and apparatus, “assigned” parliamentarians to specific territories, adopted a regulation on assistants to people’s representatives and a number of other regulatory documents.

Igor Kastyukevich, representing the Kherson Regional Duma in the Federation Council, says that the deputies plan to bring the parliament to the standards of any other Russian region: acquire an official website, a separate building, etc., but this is not a primary issue, the priority is the documentation of government bodies. “You can’t just take a standard document and replace, roughly speaking, the word “Saratov” with “Kherson”, but here everything is connected with the peculiarities of the operational situation in the special operation zone,” the senator explains the local specifics.

According to Mr. Kastyukevich, the “cabinet issue” is being worked out, taking into account safety precautions, “so that it doesn’t just fly in there.” In the meantime, we still need to teach people’s representatives to fulfill their duties, the parliamentarian summarizes: “We have quite a large number of people who became deputies for the first time. Unlike the DPR and LPR, we were in a state of “administrative minus”. Moreover, people who first went to the primaries and then ran for deputies were under severe pressure all the time.”

The issue of the security of the deputy corps in the new regions is now really pressing. “Kommersant” noticed that United Russia removed from the intra-party preliminary voting website data on participants in the primaries in the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions in elections of all levels. According to an informed source of Kommersant, the participants in the preliminary voting themselves asked for this, and they began to receive threats.

Andrey Prah, Andrey Vinokurov