Press Release, 28.11.2019

Today, deputies of the Legislative Assembly of Karelia did not support amendments of the Yabloko faction to the draft budget of the Republic of Karelia for 2020. The bill was examined in the second reading.

“The behaviour of the deputies clearly demonstrates that they understand the importance and necessity of our amendments, but at the same time they bring up inconsistent arguments, they dodge as best they can in order to block the amendments. They constantly turn to the government with a request to express the position of the executive branch, that is, they demonstrate their helplessness. They say that local authorities did not apply to them on this issue. At the same time, according to other amendments based on requests from the local authorities, they also vote “against” if they have made such a political decision,” that is how Emilia Slabunova, the author of the amendments and Chair of Yabloko, assesses the actions of Karelian parliamentarians.

According to Slabunova, it is obvious that United Russia alone manages the means of taxpayers and the budget, at its discretion, United Russia monopolised this right.

“This is a politically motivated stance of deputies from United Russia. At the same time, they are guided not by the interests of voters, but by the desire to demonstrate their strength, which is not really supported by any serious results in the socio-economic life of the republic,” Emilia Slabunova emphasises.

It should be noted that Yabloko’s amendments propose to allocate 140 million roubles for the purchase of a kindergarten in the Petrozavodsk district Drevlyanka-8, 30 million roubles for the capital repairs of healthcare facilities, 10 million roubles to make state institutions of the republic convenient for people with disabilities, 125 million roubles as a subsidy to Petrozavodsk for the purchase of trolley buses, 2 million roubles for the acquisition of book funds and connecting libraries to the Internet, 2 million roubles for the purchase of sports equipment and the inventory for sports organisations and preparation of a sports reserve for the national teams of Russia respectively, 14 million roubles as a subsidy to the administration of the Petrozavodsk city district for the purchase of housing for those who are in the queue for housing in the priority order.