Sergei Mitrokhin, YABLOKO leader, believes that lowering of a threashold on the number of party members required for party registration and a ban on electoral blocs will only lead to fragmentation of the political field and mutual alienation of the society and the parliament. He made such a statement in the State Duma today, when Duma was examining the package of President’s draft laws targeted at a political reform.
Mitrokhin stressed that the draft laws on political parties and elections of deputies of the State Duma can not be examined separately from each other.

According to Mitrokhin, a ban of electoral blocs will give a “powerful impulse to alienation for the society from the government”, and this on the threashold of a coming political crisis can lead to something more than recent mass-scale rallies. “A huge number of votes will be distributes between small parties and they will not be able to make it into the Duma, thus a significant part of the Russian society will not be represented in the State Duma and will not regard as a body reflecting their interests,” he said.

Mitrokhin also stressed that if formation of blocs is not allowed, than this would mean that the whole action with these draft laws targeted at preservation of the monopoly of the ruling party via splitting of the rest political field.
Splitting of parties’ lists into 225 precincts would also lead to fragmentation of the party system. This may encourage emergence of regional parties that would be prone to defending only narrow regional interests.
Mitrokhin also said that gubernatorial elections should take place within six months from the date of adoption of the law, and demanded to include such an amendment into the draft law for the second reading.

Mitrokhin also added that the so-called “presidential filter” envisaging coordination of the candidacy on the governor post with all the political parties (and there number might rise to 100 soon) was simply absurd.
Also Mitrokhin criticised the norm stipulating that Russia regions should set the threshold on the number of signatures required for registration in the gubernatorial elections. According to Mitrokhin, the law should envisage that the number of signatures should not exceed 0.5 per cent of the total population of the region.
Mitrokhin also announced YABLOKO’s plans to introduce amendments via the working group under the President.

In conclusion Mitrokhin told the deputies of the Duma that the people protesting in the streets of Moscow and other cities, still had not got an answer to the question whether the government was going to ensure fair elections. In view of this YABLOKO leader called the MPs to consider protesters’ demands, including dismissal of Vladimir Churov, head of the Central Electoral Commission.

“Dismissal of Vladimir Churov could become a symbolic act demonstrating your readiness to ensure fair elections and raise public trust to the authorities,” Mitrokhin said.

See also:

Presidential Elections 2012

Press Release

February 28, 2012