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The Moscow Times, November 1, 2004

Duma Gives Nod to Putin's Governors Bill

By Oksana Yablokova
The State Duma on Friday passed on its first reading a controversial Kremlin-backed bill to scrap the popular vote for governors. By a vote of 365 to 64, with four abstentions, the bill sailed through the pro-Kremlin-dominated chamber.

President Vladimir Putin first voiced the proposal to abolish direct elections and appoint regional leaders with the approval of local parliaments in September after the Beslan school attack. Putin said the move was aimed at strengthening control of the country and fighting against terrorists.

But opponents of the bill called it a dangerous attack on democracy.

Under the bill, governors will no longer be elected by direct popular vote. Instead, the president will pick his nominees and ask regional parliaments to approve them. If regional legislators reject a presidential nominee twice, the president will be entitled to dissolve the parliament and name an acting governor until a new parliament is elected.

The bill also gives the president the right to fire appointed regional leaders if they "lose his confidence," said Alexander Kosopkin, Putin's envoy to the Duma, presenting the bill to deputies.

The president will first issue a warning and then fire a governor, who will be able to appeal his dismissal in court.

Kosopkin did not say how regional leaders would be deemed to have lost the president's confidence. It was also unclear why the bill specifies that the president can dismiss governors, as under existing law governors can already be removed by a court order upon a request from the president.

Gubernatorial elections called before the bill takes effect will go ahead, Kosopkin said.

The bill has been widely discussed since September, and at least three regional legislatures have spoken out against the proposed changes. About 100 protesters from opposition parties rallied against the bill outside the Duma on Friday, a day after a rally of 300 opposition protesters.

Inside the Duma, opponents of the bill included the Communist faction and a small group of independent deputies.

"They drafted the bill a long time ago and cynically used the Beslan tragedy to push it through," said Ivan Melnikov, a Communist Party deputy.

"I do not see why the governors become more efficient and less corrupt if they are appointed and not elected in a popular vote," said Sergei Popov, a member of the liberal Yabloko party and an independent deputy.

At least two independent deputies, Viktor Pokhmelkin and Vladimir Ryzhkov, attempted to speak in the debate but were denied the floor by the pro-Kremlin United Russia majority. Other independents tried to protest, but Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov instructed that their microphones be switched off.

"The fact that they are afraid of giving their opponents a chance to speak indicates that the bill's authors are not confident of their position," Pokhmelkin said after the vote.

Deputy Speaker Lyubov Sliska said that she expected the bill to take effect by the end of the year. No date has yet been set for the bill's crucial second reading. After three Duma readings, the bill has to be approved by the Federation Council and signed by the president before it becomes law.

 

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The Moscow Times, November 1, 2004

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