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The autumn session of the third Duma ended on December 27. It
became the place where the president and the Cabinet exploited
the capacities of a parliamentary majority to the utmost. This
became particularly clear over the last three months, when the
Kremlin administration virtually stopped relying mostly on Unity
and balanced at the same time between the left and right in the
Duma. When this method of controlling the Duma was abandoned,
the communists and agrarians found themselves outside virtually
all vital parliamentary functions.
Here are the official results of this session of the lower house.
It took the Duma 28 plenary meetings to discuss over 300 laws,
including four federal constitutional laws and four codes (Land,
Criminal-Procedural Code, Labour, and on administrative violations).
The Duma adopted approximately the same number of laws in different
readings. In short, the government was responsible for virtually
all lawmaking.
The autumn session showed the nation and voters how the legislators
operated in the so-called parliamentary republics. In these republics
the government relies on the silent and obedient majority in parliament
which meekly adopts everything desired by the executive branch
of government. This is the sort of majority we have in the Duma
nowadays. In advanced parliamentary republics, the government
is formed by the party or coalition that won the parliamentary
election. That is why "financial stimuli" to rank members
from top echelons of the party never reaches the scope it had
in Russia. Supported by the presidential administration, the government
formed a group of supporters...
Everything began with the 2002 draft budget and the so-called
zero reading, i.e. clandestine consultations between the Cabinet
and its potential supporters in the Duma. According to Oleg Mironov
of the Russian Regions, the consultations began with deputies
telling the finance minister of their planned rejection of the
draft budget prepared by the government. This marked a start to
the bargaining. The left termed it "government purchase of
deputies with state money."
According to our sources, the mechanism of work with deputies
was simple. Key legislators were given control over certain financial
resources that they could spend as they saw fit - for their territories,
regions, etc. Communists even claimed that the money could be
spent to line some pockets as well.
The budget process was protracted: most deputies favourably
approved of government initiatives all through the session. Meanwhile
presidential initiatives have always been backed. Also importantly,
three different political organizations (Unity, Fatherland, and
All Russia) merged to form a single pro-presidential party simultaneously
with the autumn session.
Other factions of the lower house sporadically took part in
lawmaking. The left wing abandoned even pretence of cooperation
with the Kremlin right after adoption of the constitutional laws
on the courts. Yabloko snoozed every now and then and did not
always adequately estimate its own abilities on awakening. The
Union of Right Forces faction spent almost all the session in
preparations for its own congress, forgetting about the legislative
process.
In short, autumn 2001 was fully controlled by the so-called
centrists. They are not going to bother looking for abstract ideological
values. Instead, they keep a close eye on the political
situation and minute fluctuations in the Kremlin's policy. It
is crystal that they are bound to succeed in such circumstances.
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