Which of the deputies and on what issues do the Russians turn

In the second quarter of 2023, the State Duma received more than 101 thousand appeals from citizens against 69 thousand in the first quarter, follows from the information and analytical report published on the website of the lower house. The deputies of the “United Russia” and the speaker Vyacheslav Volodin became the most demanded addressees. From the opposition, they most often turned to the Communist Party, and personally to the leader of the Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP) Sergei Mironov. The most popular topics of letters from voters are the material and living conditions of NWO participants, environmental issues, as well as traditional complaints about the work of local authorities and management companies. The expert notes that in an appeal to a State Duma deputy, many citizens still see a reliable way to solve their pressing problems.

The United Russia (ER) faction traditionally remains the leader in terms of the number of received applications: from April to June, its deputies received almost 43,000 applications (against 32,000 in January-March). Over 12,000 of them were sent personally to the Chairman of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin. Another favorite (5.8 thousand hits) was the first deputy chairman of the committee on ecology, Vladimir Burmatov (ER). “Mostly there are appeals from my region,” the deputy told Kommersant. “We have a hot situation in the Chelyabinsk region, I would say, and the local authorities do not like it very much when they are addressed, and they react very sluggishly to this.” According to him, most of the letters relate to environmental issues: “There are a lot of appeals related to the catastrophic environmental situation in the Chelyabinsk region, mainly related to air quality and drinking water quality: everything is equally sad with both of us.” Letters devoted to the consideration of the high-profile bill on the treatment of stray animals were also received – and mostly in paper form (citizens use digital formats to submit most appeals). “I still have a bunch of applications in my office one and a half times higher than me,” says Mr. Burmatov. “This is about 20,000 or more requests that came in paper form, and we, by the way, responded to each one.”

The leader of the SRZP, Sergei Mironov, became the most sought-after addressee (739 letters) from among the opposition deputies, in total, Right-wing Russians received 4.9 thousand appeals. Deputy Yana Lantratova (SRZP) explained to Kommersant that the Socialist-Revolutionaries traditionally receive many appeals, including through their own platforms: “To delve into each appeal and help everyone who applied is the position of Sergei Mikhailovich (Mironov.— “b”), and we all try to match. It is clear that there are situations when we are unable to fix something, but these are rather exceptions. The cumulative second place in terms of the number of letters remained with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (7 thousand appeals), the Liberal Democratic Party and New People processed 2.7 thousand and 2.2 thousand letters, respectively.

In the list of topical topics for citizens’ appeals, the report’s compilers for the first time separately singled out “material and welfare support for military personnel under the contract.” At the same time, in May, deputies received almost 16,000 such messages, while in April and June they received only four and three letters, respectively (Kommersant’s interlocutors in the Duma attribute such fluctuations to the peculiarities of the bureaucratic procedure). The main topic is social guarantees for military personnel who are today fulfilling their duty in the NVO zone, deputy Alexander Yushchenko (KPRF) confirmed to Kommersant: “The appeals are different, ranging from payments, security, some bureaucratic procedures in the regions. Of course, they ask for help: for example, right now I bought first-aid kits for servicemen. We have 114 convoys left, and these convoys are formed on request.” The relevance of the topic was also emphasized by representatives of the United Russia and SRZP. According to Yana Lantratova, an impressive part of the appeals to Sergei Mironov is just related to the SVO.

The top three most popular topics also included issues related to the Constitution and the foundations of the constitutional system (14.5 thousand applications) and problems of humane treatment of animals (14.3 thousand). A clear surge of letters on the latter topic occurred in May and June – the period of finalization and consideration of a bill on granting regions broad powers to deal with stray animals.

Other Duma initiatives that attracted the attention of Russians are related to the provision of a deferment from the call for mobilization, as well as the ban on gender reassignment. In addition, the applicants reacted to the bills on the digital ruble (citizens fear that its introduction will limit the functions of ordinary money), the “garage amnesty”, the use of documents in electronic form (the applicants asked to keep the traditional form), as well as a number of legislative proposals related to the expansion powers of guardianship.

The report also mentions the structures, about the work of which the voters complained to the deputies. Among other things, they were asked to understand the decisions of the prosecutor’s office and the courts regarding the mobilization of individual citizens. Also, Duma analysts recorded complaints about the work of managing organizations, unscrupulous developers and persons engaged in illegal business activities. According to Alexander Yushchenko, issues and complaints related to social issues take a confident second place: “Different specifics, including insurance payments, somewhere someone was illegally fired, somewhere pensions, somewhere the resettlement of dilapidated housing.”

At the same time, in conversations with Kommersant, representatives of the factions drew attention to the fact that the statistics of the electronic reception of the State Duma, on the basis of which this report is based, do not reflect the entire range of representative work of the lower house. A considerable part of citizens write to party mailboxes, as well as to the social networks of individual deputies, the parliamentarians explain.

President of the Center for Regional Policy Development Ilya Grashchenkov believes that the increase in the number of applications to the Duma clearly demonstrates how the parliament is becoming a platform where citizens turn to solve their pressing issues: “The deputies of this convocation really work quite closely “on the ground”, they are known, they are available . When people are faced with injustice from local officials, the easiest solution is to write to the MP. Paper arrives from the federal government, and this becomes a pretext for resolving the conflict.” According to an expert who is familiar with the representative work of a number of deputies, parliamentarians indeed receive “a lot of appeals of a specific nature”, thanks to which in many cases it is possible to solve “not abstract, but very specific problems”.

Grigory Leiba