Decision by the Yabloko Bureau, 19.11.2021

Photo: The authors of the bill MP Pavel Krasheninnikov and Senator Andrei Klishas. / Photo by Alexander Miridonov, Kommersant

The Yabloko party regards the Klishas-Krashennikov bill “On the general principles of organising public power in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation” as the final elimination of federalism and local self-government and the construction of a rigidly centralised unitary state of the imperial type in Russia.

Maintaining the [line towards] amendments to the Constitution, the new law will allow the President and the Government to formally intervene in such areas of regional competence as education, health care, and finance, and appoint and remove from office governors and regional ministers. Both then and now the goal is the same: consolidation of a rigid vertical of power, when all decisions are made in the presidential administration, and the independence of the regions and local self-government bodies proclaimed by the Constitution is a fiction.

The adoption of this bill will lead to the fact that local issues will be resolved at the regional level, and regional issues at the federal level. This will complicate the solution of all issues, increase the time for their solution, infringe on the rights of citizens and further slow down the development of the country.

We insist on the need to federalise Russia, the right of the regions to independently form their government bodies, determine economic policy and implement it. In the absence of financial and political independence, the regions will be doomed to further degradation and stagnation.

Having no illusions about the adoption of this law, we nevertheless call on the legislative assemblies of the regions not to give up their rights and powers, not to be one’s own gravediggers and submit a negative review of the bill.

The Party Bureau supports the initiative of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma on the draft resolution of the Moscow City Duma “On amendments to the draft federal law “On general principles of organisation of public power in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation” envisaging maintenance of the key principles of federalism and abolishing the most harmful norms of the bill.

The Bureau recommends to the deputies from the Yabloko party in the legislative (representative) bodies of power in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation to submit similar draft resolutions for consideration by the relevant [legislative/representative] bodies of power.

We urge all party members and everyone who understands the danger of adopting such a law to send a demand not to adopt it both to the State Duma of the Russian Federation and all deputies elected in single-mandate constituencies.

Nikolai Rybakov,

Yabloko Chairman

MAXIM KRUGLOV

is member of the Federal Bureau of the Yabloko Party, Deputy Chairman of the Moscow branch of Yabloko. Head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma. Candidate of Political Sciences.