| Ending an almost two-year struggle to chose a date for elections
to the St.
Petersburg
Legislative Assembly the Chamber Assembly on Wednesday passed
an amendment to
the City Charter setting out Dec. 14 as the date for the vote.
The vote brought to an end to an on-and-off-again battle between
a group of
deputies
that supported the December date and another group that wanted
the vote to be
moved
back to April, or even December of next year.
On Wednesday, Legislative Assembly Speaker Sergei Tarasov laid
the blame for
the
stalemate on the Northwestern Presidential Representative's office,
which is
headed by
Victor Cherkesov. Tarasov, who supported the amendment, said Cherkesov's
office had
put pressure on some lawmakers to block its passage.
"I will go on record as saying that, unfortunately, the Northwestern
Presidential
Representative's office made a strong effort to try to convince
lawmakers not
to
participate in the voting at all," Tarasov said after the
vote. "The United
Russia faction,
with the exception of one deputy - Arkady Kramaryev - didn't take
part in the
vote. It's
shameful that the leading pro-presidential faction would take
such a stanve
such a
position."
"Despite this, most of the factions supported the amendment
for December
elections ... .
These elections are extremely important for the city's future
[and] citizens
have the
chance to start preparing for the event," he added.
Representatives in Cherkesov's office denied the accusations.
"This is just
another
baseless comment that can't be believed. He didn't mention any
names or any
specifics
of what has been done, so there's absolutely nothing to comment
on here," the
spokesperson for the Northwestern Presidential Representative's
office,
Alexei Gutsailo,
said on Thursday.
Kramarev, the only United Russia member to cast a vote, wouldn't
say whether
he had
been pressured in relation to his vote. "Voting is such a
personal thing, so
I'd rather not
discuss this," he said on Thursday.
Only 38 of the 50 Legislative Assemblies turned up for the vote
on the
ammendment,
with 34 voting for and 4 abstaining. The Union of Right Forces
(SPS) party
also
boycotted the vote.
Part of the impetus behind the desire of some deputies to move
the elections
back came
as a result of a new Federal election law that will come into
force in July
of 2003.
According to the law, which was passed by the Federation Counsel
on Wednesday,
deputies to regional parliaments and local councils will be elected
by a
two-tier sytem.
Under the law, 50 lawmakers in the legislature would have been
chosen by
district,
where they would have had to garner at least 25 percent of the
vote, while
another 50
would be elected on the basis of proportional representation and
party lists.
If the
elections had been scheduled for after the law came into effect,
the number
of deputies
would have ballooned to 100 and the composition of power in the
legislature
would
have been altered.
"From the point of view of the federal parties, it makes
perfect sense to
have elections
based on the party lists, because it would create a system in
which the
parliament is
more independent from local power. That's what we were trying
to do, but it
didn't work
out," Alexei Kovalyov, an SPS lawmaker, said in a telephone
interview on
Thursday.
The two-year struggle to settle on the date has involved a number
of different
government bodies, including the Federal Election Commission.
The discussion
heated
up last autumn, when the St. Petersburg 300 Year Anniversary faction,
a
pro-Smolny
group, filed a draft to hold the elections this April. The draft
wasn't
passed and, at the
end of April, Federation Counsel Speaker Sergei Mironov managed
to convince a
group
of lawmakers to vote for December. Mironov said that holding the
elections
before the
end of the year was vital.
"With the elections taking place in December, it helps avoid
a situation
where the city
could actually have found itself without a legislative branch
for a few
months" Mironov
said at a briefing April on 29, following a closed meeting with
the
Legislative Assembly
lawmakers.
According to the City Charter, the powers of the current Legislative
Assembly
end on
Jan. 6, exactly four years after the assembly's first session,
following the
1998
parliamentary elections.
Prior to Mironov's visit, the parties and factions had been almost
perfectly
divided
between those those supporting a date this December and those
in favor off
one of the
two dates next year.
At the April briefing, Mironov said that, if the elections weren't
held in
December, the
deputies' offices at the Legislative Assembly would have been
sealed and the
city
would have lost its seat on the Federation Council. As Mironov
occupies that
seat
himself, there was some urgency to his message.
"Mironov has proved once again that he keeps his word. At
the meeting he said
his
faction would vote for the December date and it did," said
Viktor Yevtukhov, a
Legislative Assembly lawmaker from the Unity faction.
One political analyst said that the amendment almost didn't pass
because of
forgetfulness.
"Yevtukhov, who is also an adviser to the governor, made
the gesture that
decided the
issue," said Alexei Musakov, the head of the St. Petersburg
Center for
Regional
Development. "He didn't have his voting key with him and
managed to get his
vote
registered by raising his hand instead. Thirty-three votes wouldn't
have been
enough to
carry the ammendment".
"This was all just a game [run by] the governor's side. [St.
Petersburg
Governor
Vladimir] Yakovlev wanted the election to be held in April this
year, but it
didn't
happen," he said.
Yevtukhov says that the April date would have been his preference
as well,
and would
have lessened the chance of candidates trying to buy their way
into the
assembly.
"It would have been better if we had had the elections in
April of this year,
but the
United Russia and SPS factions voted against this because they
wanted the
election
system to include party lists," Yevtukhov said in a telephone
interview on
Thursday.
"To get the top positions on these lists costs money - the
potential
lawmakers' own
money," he said.
"Plus, if the governor has a position I agree with him. I'm
the governor's
adviser," he
added.
But not everyone was thrilled that the party-list option had been
eliminated.
"To chose a [local] parliament according to party lists is
the best way. Now
those
candidates who finish first in their constituency with only 12
percent of the
votes cast
still get everything. As for the people who voted for candidates
from other
parties, they
are left without representation," said Boris Vishnevsky,
a Yabloko faction
member in an
interview on Wednesday.
Smolny's stance on the whole question was, perhaps, simplest of
all.
"Why are we discussing this question at all, whether the
best date is in
december or
some time else. The law says that lawmakers are elected to a four-year
term.
If that term
is ending, there have to be elections. There's no question here
at all," said
Alexander
Afanasyev, the spokesperson for Yakovlev, in a telephone interview
on
Thursday.
See also:
Elections/Regional
Elections/St.Petersburg. Elections to Legislative
Assembly.2002. | 