The State Duma adopted the law on the transfer of the Duma elections from December to next September. 339 deputies voted for the document, 102 MPs voted against.
The bill was prepared by the leaders of the parliamentary factions the United Russia Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, the Fair Russia Party and the Chairman of the Chamber Sergei Naryshkin. The authors explained the need to transfer the elections that the same Duma deputies of the seventh convocation should adopt the budget for 2017 and be responsible for it.
The document specifies that the elections of deputies of the State Duma will be held on the third Sunday of September 2016, and the State Duma will hold its first meeting no later than the 30th day after the elections.
According to the feasibility study, the maximum costs associated with the implementation of the bill would amount to 1,586,000 rubles per deputy, making a total of 713.7 million rubles.
The Russian Communist Party opposed the law and vowed to challenge it in the Constitutional Court. The law was sent to the Federation Council.
The Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Nationalities, Gadzhimet Safaraliev, stressed that the transfer is motivated primarily by the fact that, in this case, the same MPs who will take the budget for next year will be working with it. "In addition, the election will be combined with others in a single day of voting. We have come to the conclusion that it would be more efficient and useful to hold it earlier, so people will vote for both local and federal governments," he explained.
Gadzhimet Safaraliev is not sure whether he would run in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The chairman of the State Duma Committee for Energy, Ivan Grachyov, told Vestnik Kavkaza that such a transfer will not allow Russians to adequately monitor the progress of the election campaign. "Our summer and autumn are linked with the holidays. I think that there will be more show elements and elements of administrative action before the next elections," he said.
Ivan Grachev plans to run for the State Duma together with the party recreated on the basis of the Party of Development of Entrepreneurship.
