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The State Duma churned into action this week after its winter recess
with lawmakers focusing on a major redistribution of powers among federal,
regional and municipal authorities -- the centerpiece of the last session
before this year's parliamentary race hits full stride.
Deputies from the pro-Kremlin coalition making up the chamber's
majority said the reform package, developed by the presidential
administration and scheduled to be considered next month, was their top
priority.
"Today, for example, responsibility for providing people with heating
lies with the authorities as a whole and with no one in particular. After
the reform, authorities on every level -- federal, regional and local --
will have clearly delineated rights and obligations, backed up ... with hard
cash," Vladislav Reznik, deputy head of the coalition's Unity faction, said
Tuesday.
Deputy Duma Speaker Vladimir Lukin of the liberal Yabloko party agreed
that the reform was the most significant legislation to be considered during
the spring session, which was to kick off with its first plenary meeting on
Wednesday.
"The delineation of powers concerns the entire composition of the
country," Lukin said.
He added that the reform package would stir up plenty of debate since
"nothing that involves shifting funds from one place to another can ever be
smooth sailing."
The most controversial item on this session's agenda is the overhaul
of the national power grid, Unified Energy Systems. The UES reform package
passed in a first reading late last year, but a second reading is not
expected until at least February. The Duma Council is set to consider new
government amendments next week.
The reform -- which would involve substantial price hikes for
electricity and, consequently, many consumer goods -- poses a big political
risk ahead of December's Duma elections and next year's presidential race.
During his recent address to the nation, President Vladimir Putin
called on lawmakers not to let anxieties about the elections hinder their
work this year.
Political analyst Boris Makarenko of the Center for Political
Technologies said he believed the deputies would take this as a direct order
and would push ahead with important bills, "although it will be difficult to
avoid populist pre-election legislation altogether."
Independent Deputy Viktor Pokhmelkin agreed. "There will be lots of
populist initiatives. That's just the nature of election year lawmaking," he
said.
For whatever reason -- whether to free up time for campaigning or to
get their work done in the allotted time period -- deputies have planned a
lighter schedule than they had last fall.
Although the spring session is two months longer than the fall
session, the Duma has slated the same number of bills to be considered
between now and June as it had for the session that ran from September to
December -- 500. By the end of the fall session, though, only 359 bills were
submitted to the Duma and of these the deputies managed to consider 304.
Wednesday's opening meeting was predicted to last only half a day,
with the comical bill on Russian as the state language as the main item on
the agenda.
Other legislation to be considered includes a much debated new law on
media, changes to the status of senators, an attempt to slash the country's
bureaucracy, pension reform, mandatory auto insurance, harsher penalties for
illegal drug use and pedophilia and new measures against corruption.
Some of the thornier issues up for debate will include the broader
housing and utility reform -- the dire need for which has been thrown into
relief by this winter's heating crisis but would likely involve the same
kind of unpopular price hikes as the UES overhaul.
The deputies will also try to tackle proposals for education and
health care reform. Some 300 teachers picketed outside the Duma on Tuesday
to protest the Labor Ministry's proposal for changing its system for paying
public-sector wages, which lawmakers have criticized, saying the plan "does
not guarantee a genuine improvement in education professionals' standard of
living."
Most deputies said they believed the spring session would pass without
any major surprises. "There won't be any real tension," said Deputy Georgy
Tikhonov, a pro-Communist member of the Russia's Regions faction. "That's
because everything is controlled by the old Kremlin team -- Cosa Nostra."
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