30 amendments were introduced to the main election law of DagestaniRepublic recently. The most important of them is that the total number of MPs was raised from 72 to 90. This amendment is based on Russian Federal Law principle of proportional representation of a district ina body of legislation.
However, for the ordinary citizens of the republic, the new law is extremely difficult to understand. Unlike the federal law, the Dagestani one imposes some quantitative restrictions, which makes parliamentary seats almost unattainable for smaller parties.
Before the introduction of the amendments the number of representatives from large cities and small districts was almost the same. From now on, Dagestani parties can organize 62 regional groups(the previous figure was 51). According to the previous version of the law, if a party could not satisfy the condition, i.e. organizes fewer regional groups than required, it cannot run for election. The new version stipulates a lower threshold of 32 regional groups. The next parliamentary elections in Dagestan are due to take place in March 2011.It is interesting to note that the federal law does not have any clauses on obligatory party regional groups, so an amendment was introduced, following the decision of the Supreme Constitutional Court.
The current Dagestani MPs were elected in 2007. These elections were the first ones to use party lists and not the single-seat electoral district system. However, the party system is still pretty nominal, due to the regional group restrictions. And it was one of the parties that could not participate in the elections because of the clause that addressed the Supreme Court.Even with the amendments in place, the issue of new legal discrimination against small parties in Dagestan is not finally resolved. Moreover, with the growth of the number of MPs’, the expenses of the Parliament will also grow.
