Duma has become a Rubber Stamp for the Powers that Be, New Data Show

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 1 – Although the Russian Duma is often described as “a printer,” it is far more accurately categorized as a rubber stamp, a new analysis of the laws it passed in the first half of 2022. In that period, 69 percent of the 90 bills passed were written by the government; and all eight (nine percent) that came from President Vladimir Putin were passed.

            Combined with the 17 percent offered by the ruling United Russia Party, that means of all the laws passed in the first half of this year, 95 percent came from the government or its agents, None of the other partis in the Duma – KPRF, LDPR, Just Russia and New People – wrote more than one percent of the successful bills (t.me/sotaproject/43126).

            The approval rate of bills offered by various sources is also indicative: 100 percent of the bills Putin proposed were passed, slightly more than 30 percent of those put forward by the government were approved, and 14 percent of those offered by United Russia were. Only 0.7 percent of those offered by Just Russia were passed and signed into law.