MOSCOW - Russia's parliament has given preliminary backing to a bill that would enable the country's 83 regions to scrap popular elections of their leaders in favour of a system that would let President Vladimir Putin choose candidates instead.
Opponents said the bill, approved in a 403-10 vote late on
Wednesday after the first of three readings in the lower house
would be a step backwards for democracy in Putin’s new term. The
lower house is dominated by Putin’s United Russia party.
Putin scrapped popular elections of regional governors as
part of a drive to tighten his grip on the political system in
his initial 2000-2008 presidency.
The elections were reintroduced last year amid a wave of
opposition protests that drew tens of thousands of Russians
tired of Putin’s dominance and eager for a stronger political
voice.
Critics of Putin say the rules favour United Russia as it
is, and its candidates won all five governorships at stake in
elections last October.
The proposed law would allow each region to abandon direct
elections and put in place a system under which Putin would name
three candidates and the regional legislature would elect one of
them as governor.
Backers of the bill suggest it is mainly intended as a means
to scrap popular elections in regions with ethnically mixed
populations, such as the mostly Muslim provinces of the
insurgency-plagued North Caucasus.
The Kremlin is concerned that votes in those regions could
involve candidates whose loyalty is in question or spark unrest.
The financial daily Vedomosti reported on Thursday that
Putin wants to use the legislation to choose the leaders of the
North Caucasus provinces of Dagestan and Ingushetia, bordering
war-scarred Chechnya, this autumn. The Kremlin declined
immediate comment.
Critics of the president suspect the law will be used in any
region where United Russia, which is far less popular than Putin
himself and saw its Duma majority sharply reduced in the
December 2011 parliamentary election, fears it could face a
strong challenge.
Dmitry Gudkov, an opposition lawmaker and a leader of the
protests against alleged fraud on behalf of United Russia in
that election, called the proposed law undemocratic and
discriminatory.
“What has happened to make you think that citizens of
certain regions do not deserve direct elections of their
governors, and why are you also trying to guarantee that United Russia candidates will take power in regions where its level of
support has fallen?” he said during the Duma debate.
Putin has said he is improving democracy in his new six-year
term, which began last May, citing plans for a system under
which half the Duma’s 450 deputies would be elected directly,
instead of from party lists. Critics say the initiative will
favour United Russia because it holds the levers of power
nationwide.
