| 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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