Press Release, 10.12.2020

Yaroslav Shcherbakov, Chairman of the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko sent an appeal to the Legislative Assembly of the region with a request to admit him to participate in the next meeting of the regional parliament on December 15.

The regional branch of the party notes that according to the law on political parties, each party registered but not represented in the Legislative Assembly has the right once a year to participate in a meeting and consideration of agenda items selected by it in the legislative assembly.

The Chelyabinsk branch of the Yabloko party urges regional MPs to discuss the following issues:

1. The budget of the Chelyabinsk region for 2021. According to Yaroslav Shcherbakov, the document is too optimistic, does not reflect the real economic situation and the needs of residents, and also runs the risks of being unfulfilled.

“Despite the forecast on the reduction of the federal budget revenues by 10 billion roubles and corporate income tax by 3 billion roubles, it is expected that the income part should grow due to revenues from the income tax from citizens and small businesses: personal income tax revenues should grow by 1.37 billion, and revenues from taxes received on the simplified tax system should rise by 403 million roubles. There are not many prerequisites for such growth,” the Chairman of the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko said.

2. Adoption of the law on proactive budgeting in the Chelyabinsk region is a form of direct participation of the population in the distribution of budget funds. Now there is a condition in the law when residents, in order to exercise the right of initiative granted to them, are offered “to give money to the budget” once again, in addition to the taxes they have already paid, to implement their initiative .

3. Changing the article of the regional law, providing for a zero per cent tax rate on the simplified tax system for new individual entrepreneurs in certain areas of activity for two years. In a crisis, this benefit should be expanded, but its fate is still unknown.

4. Return of direct mayoral elections

Amendments to Article 2 of the regional law establishing the procedure for elections of heads of cities and districts of the Chelyabinsk region, with the exception of Chelyabinsk (which is now as follows: “…are elected by the representative bodies of municipalities from among the candidates presented by the competition commission based on the results of the competition, and are heading local administrations.”).

“It is this wording that needs to be changed so that direct elections of heads of cities and districts in the Chelyabinsk region should be returned, but such an initiative from representatives of the current government is unlikely,” Yaroslav Shcherbakov noted.