Press Release, 13.03.2020

The Yabloko party proposes to supplement the Constitution of the Russian Federation with a chapter on the electoral system, political parties and the rights of the opposition. Regional MPs from Yabloko introduced the corresponding bill to the legislative assemblies of six constituent entities of the Russian Federation – Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Astrakhan and Pskov regions, Karelia and the Khabarovsk Territory.

One of the norms of the new chapter prohibits the establishment of direct or indirect restrictions on the rights of citizens to be elected to bodies of state power and local self-government. The Constitution should establish the liability for direct or indirect coercion to vote, such actions by officials and organisations are proposed to be considered a crime.

Also Yabloko proposes to introduce a ban on campaigning for state authorities, local self-government and officials. According to Yabloko, coverage of the activities of officials or current deputies who participate in the elections should be considered as campaigning. Their competitors should get the same opportunities for campaigning.

The so-called practice of “locomotives” (when a well-known person — a minister, governor, or party leader — heads the list to the Duma or a legislative assembly, and then refuses the mandate, and this mandate goes to the next on the list) is prohibited. Yabloko proposes to ban such practices. If this nevertheless happened, then the party should be deprived of one deputy mandate, and the deputy who refused the current mandate should be deprived of the right to participate in the elections for ten years.

The next article of the new chapter of the Constitution provides for the creation of a system of electoral bodies independent of each other and of the executive branch, which are formed by political parties, both represented in the legislative branch and not represented.

This system should include commissions for the formation of constituencies, supervisory boards for ensuring equal opportunities in elections, commissions for electoral disputes, commissions for financial control, election commissions, and an ombudsman for citizens electoral rights.

Only political parties should be entitled to nominate candidates for elections. At the same time, parties are allowed to create electoral blocs. The threashold for passing is reduced to 1%.

The number of members of one faction in the State Duma and the legislative assemblies of regions cannot exceed 40% of the total number of their deputies.

“The key purpose of the new chapter of the Constitution is the conceptual recognition of the extremely high importance of the problem of absence of elections in Russia, the need for a radical change in the situation with the elections, that is, the Russian political system should gain them,” Yelena Dubrovina, the author of the amendement, head of Yabloko’s Centre for Legislative Initiatives  and member of the Central Electoral Commission in 1999-2016, says. According to Dubrovina, “The Constitution must respond to acute problems of the country, seeking to contribute to their resolution”.

It should be noted that in its first package of amendments to the Constitution Yabloko proposed  reducing the presidential term to four years, limiting the powers of the head of state to the list provided for by the Constitution, introducing the election of members of the Federation Council, empowering the Federation Council to nominate Public Prosecutor General, and giving the State Duma the right to nominate Prime Minister, allow deputies make a vote of no confidence in individual ministers, expand the composition of the Constitutional Court, return the Supreme Arbitration Court, introduce the election of court chairpersons by the judges, expand the right to a jury trial and introduce the election of justices of the peace.

In addition, the party prepared amendments to ban private military organisations in Russia, transfer to the contract principle of formation of the army, expand the rights of the Federal Assembly to formulation of the country’s foreign policy, and recognise torture as a grave crime.