Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 2 – More parties are
represented the current Chuvash State Council than ever before, but United
Russia, the country’s ruling party, is running roughshod over both them and the
established rules, thereby reducing the authority of the parliament in the eyes
of the population and exacerbating tensions in the republic, according to a
legal expert.
In an article in today’s “Irekle
Samakh,” that Middle Volga republic’s independent newspaper, Igor Mikhailov, a
lawyer who serves as coordinator of Civic Initiatives there, explicitly says
that “the political pluralism declared by the Constitution exists only on paper
and does not correspond to reality” (irekle.org/articles/i40.html).
The
current composition of the republic’s State Council is the most diverse in
history, he notes, with 32 deputies of United Russia, four from the KPRF, two
from the LDPR and five from Just Russia, but that diversity is just for show as
any survey of the council’s operation will show and as Chuvashia residents are
increasingly aware.
United
Russia, despite the rules under which the council has operated in the past, has
done everything it can to keep the representatives of other parties from
playing any role, Mikhaylov says. Indeed, United Russia deputies control all
key posts, and often they have not even informed the others about meetings, agendas,
or even the content of key legislation.
The
other parties have thus had to find out what is going on independently and
through the Internet, he continues, but sometimes even that source has not been
sufficiently detailed for them to fulfill their responsibilities. The
population sees this, and it is increasingly angry about what is going on.
In
order to give their actions the appearance of legality, United Russia deputies
pushed through a new set of rules that allow them to do pretty much what they
want and to ignore the rights of the representatives of other parties. The latter have appealed to the Russian
president and his plenipotentiary in the region but without much success.
A
watershed moment came a year ago when “representatives of the opposition walked
out of the hall in protest” when United Russia deputies voted to refuse to
allow the author of a bill to speak on its behalf, and another came in February
when United Russia rammed through a bill without the required hearings in
committee.
But
perhaps the most serious violation of law and the constitution occurred,
Mikhailov says, when United Russia ensured that other deputies did not know the
content of a measure which in fact changed the constitution of the republic by
dropping references to Chuvashia as “a state” with the Russian Federation.
The
Committee of Civic Initiatives in Chuvashia “considers that such an approach …
without open consideration, without discussion, and without a public assessment”
contradicts the fundamental principles of parliamentarianism” and must be
changed, the legal specialist continues.
The
Chuvash population appears to agree. Trust in the State Council of Chuvashia is
now “catastrophically low.” More than a
quarter of the population says that it does not trust the parliament to
represent its interests, nearly half say they find it difficult to answer that
question, and only a quarter say they do trust the deputies.
The
republic’s legislators do little legislating, Mikhailov says. It is dead last among republic legislatures
in the entire Russian Federation in that regard. Instead, United Russia deputies,
using their dominant position, simply work to bring all of the republic’s laws
into correspondence with federal legislation.
Because
of United Russia’s approach, the Chuvash State Council “has not held a single
parliamentary hearing or allowed representatives of political parties not
represented in the council to speak, despite Russian and Chuvash legislation
that requires precisely that at least once a year.
Moreover, the public councils that
Russian law calls for, such as the Social Chamber, Experts Council, and Youth
Parliament, remain dead letters in the republic seldom if ever meeting and never
consulted as Russian law requires by the United Russia-dominated State Council.
Finally, Mikhailov notes, Chuvash
residents cannot even find out how the deputies voted. The deputies use an
electronic system “which does not identify” how each voted, thus violating yet
another principle of parliamentary life and depriving the population of exactly
the kind of information it needs to make an informed choice in elections.
To remedy this situation, the lawyer
offers eight proposals that essentially call for the State Council to operate
according to the law, ensure that all fractions are fully informed and involved
in its work, and provide more information to the population about what it and
its individual members are doing.
Unless there is a fundamental change
of heart on the part of the United Russia majority, however, there seems little
chance of any of them being adopted. And
thus in one small Middle Volga republic, the undemocratic actions of that
ruling party go a long way to explaining why it is increasingly discredited not
only there but across the Russian Federation.
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