Who writes well in Rus’ – Newspaper Kommersant No. 210 (7411) dated 11/14/2022

Citizens who apply to the State Duma most often write to its speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, follows from the data of the online reception of the lower house. Feedback leaders also include Mikhail Delyagin, deputy from A Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP), Alexander Khinshtein from United Russia (ER) and Anzhelika Glazkova (KPRF), moreover, Delyagin and Glazkova were first elected to the Duma in Last year. SRZP is the leader among the opposition factions in terms of the number of appeals received. Among the main topics of complaints – housing and communal services and pensions, and over the past month – partial mobilization.

According to the statistics of the website “Reception of the State Duma”, the speaker Vyacheslav Volodin (ER) received the most requests from citizens in 2022 – 7666 (as of November 13). According to a Kommersant source in the Duma, the main topics of appeals, in particular, over the past month are “support by citizens of a special military operation, issues related to measures to support soldiers, officers, volunteers (also appeals were received on the speaker’s Telegram channel), and a topic related to the need for a law to ban the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations.” Mr. Volodin explained the haste with the adoption during this session of a bill banning LGBT propaganda precisely by the requests of citizens.

Following the speaker is Mikhail Delyagin, who was elected to the Duma from the SRZP in 2021: 2,709 appeals were sent to him. As he told Kommersant, mostly people complain to him about the problems of the pension system, when “pension funds do not recognize seniority, and this is a mass phenomenon.” The second block of problems is related to the inability to pay off loans due to the loss of a job. In October, there were many complaints about violations during partial mobilization, the deputy says: for example, in the Penza region, a man without combat experience and the index finger of his right hand was drafted into machine gunners. In addition, the Socialist-Revolutionary is sent “advice on the arrangement of Russia.”

According to Mr. Delyagin, senders “do not understand that he is not United Russia” and his influence is limited, but he can draw the authorities’ attention to the problem. Although the deputy represents Moscow, the Republic of Mari El, the Tula and Penza regions in the Duma, they write to him from all over Russia. He attributes such popularity to the fact that he is “often shown on TV and remembered since the 90s, when he created the state” (in the second half of the 90s, Mikhail Delyagin was an adviser to Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov, First Deputy Prime Ministers Boris Nemtsov and Yuri Maslyukov).

The top three in terms of the number of received online applications (over 2 thousand) also includes the head of the Committee on Information Policy Alexander Khinshtein (ER). He explained to Kommersant that in fact there are more appeals: social networks have become a separate feedback channel, only on VKontakte the deputy receives several dozen messages daily. According to Mr. Khinshtein, the voters of his constituency in the Samara region complain about dilapidated housing, roads, water supply to small villages, the lack of kindergartens and schools, and at the federal level they most often address the problems of criminal prosecution, non-execution of a court decision, recalculation of pensions.

The most popular member of the Communist Party in terms of the number of appeals is Anzhelika Glazkova (wife of opposition politician Nikolai Platoshkin), also elected to the Duma for the first time last year. She represents Altai, Tuva and the Altai Territory, but also receives letters from other regions. They turn to a variety of topics, and very often these are complaints about human rights violations in the FSIN system, Ms. Glazkova told Kommersant. There were especially many of them when the deputy visited several colonies and pre-trial detention centers. “I answer everyone promptly, they often call the office and are surprised that they can get through, and the rumor quickly diverges,” she said, adding that they can help in about half of the cases.

The top ten of the rating also includes three members of United Russia – the first deputy head of the committee on ecology Vladimir Burmatov (in the last convocation he headed the same committee), vice-speaker Pyotr Tolstoy and the first deputy head of the committee on family issues Tatyana Butskaya (committee is headed by communist Nina Ostanina). They write to Mr. Tolstoy (represents Moscow) on the problems of housing and communal services, education, the protection of the Russian language (they ask, for example, to exclude anglicisms, change the Russian language program, more closely monitor errors in textbooks and books) and large families, an assistant to the deputy told Kommersant: “Housing and communal services is not our topic, but the housing issue has always been the most painful, I think all other deputies have the same situation.” Basically, they ask for help when “they cannot get through the official structures of the executive power,” the interlocutor explained.

The top ten most popular recipients include two more SRZP deputies – party leader Sergei Mironov and head of the commission for ensuring housing rights of citizens Galina Khovanskaya (in the previous two convocations – chairman of the committee on housing and communal services). Mr. Mironov, as he told Kommersant, is approached on the problems of medicine, education, ecology, housing and communal services, rising prices, and unemployment. A separate block, the politician says, has recently become the problems that arose during the partial mobilization. In addition, according to him, citizens apply in case of acute critical moments: for example, recently a mother of eight children from the Oryol region, whose house burned down, wrote to him. Closes the top ten leader of the Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov.

Least of all appeals came to the name of the deputy from the Liberal Democratic Party Andrey Svintsov (119, Moscow), who received a mandate only in June this year, as well as United Russia single-mandate members Aidyn Saryglar (172, Tuva), Jasharbek Uzdenov (177, Karachay-Cherkessia) and Alexander Polyakov (178, Tambov region).

In terms of the number of appeals sent to factions, ER is in the lead (62% of all appeals), and from the opposition – SRZP (12%). The Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party each have 10% of the appeals, and the New People have 6%. “I think citizens see the professionalism of our deputies and uncompromising work in the interests of the people without regard to the executive (regional) authorities. For example, our Galina Petrovna Khovanskaya is a clear evidence of this: the best specialist in the country on housing and communal services,” Mr. Mironov commented on this result.

In terms of the geography of appeals, most of them came from Moscow (over 60 thousand), St. Petersburg, the Moscow Region, the Krasnodar Territory, the Sverdlovsk and Novosibirsk Regions. Buryatia writes to the Duma least of all (only 9 appeals per year). Of the Duma committees, the most popular among citizens in 2022 was the Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, and in October, after the announcement of partial mobilization, the Committee on Defense. At the same time, the number of applications in October (about 20,000) turned out to be many times less than in November last year, when the bill on QR codes was introduced (over 87,000).

The electronic reception of the Duma is often used for mass mailings, so both the appeals themselves and the answers to them are of the same type, political scientist Pavel Sklyanchuk notes. And the list of deputies-leaders, in his opinion, is, first of all, a cut of resonant public topics this year. “Economist Delyagin is written about rising prices, Burmatov is sent petitions by animal rights activists, Khinshtein and Tolstoy are written about the ban on LGBT propaganda, and Khovanskaya is complaining about high utility rates,” Mr. Sklyanchuk believes. As for the appeals related to mobilization and SVO, other deputies, who primarily used their social networks, can be leaders here. The leadership of the SZRP faction is the result of the systematic work of the party apparatus with the appeals of citizens, the “wide popularity in narrow circles” of its individual deputies, and in general, the electorate of the left has always been more inclined to correspond with the authorities, the expert concludes.

Maria Makutina