Exactly one month ago, the elections of the deputies of the 8th convocation of the State Duma took place – during this time the list of new people’s deputies became finally clear, the first meeting of the State Duma took place, at which the chairman, his deputies and the heads of the committees were approved. Now we can summarize.
What will the new parliament be like? A place for discussion or a “rabid printer” of the previous convocations?about:blank
The new Russian parliament of the 2021 model turned out to be as close as possible to the previous one. Unlike the previous election years, when new politicians came along with the new Duma, this time the chosen course of preserving the political situation has justified itself. According to the Hamburg account, everyone remained with their own people. The only news of these elections was the new – the fifth – the party “New People”, which barely overcame the entrance barrier and received the smallest faction in the entire recent history of Russian parliamentarism on Okhotny Ryad. 15 people will now represent the ideological heirs of the “Union of Right Forces” in the State Duma. Which in itself, of course, is very characteristic. Since the new-old curator of the domestic policy of the Russian Federation, the first deputy head of the Presidential Administration of Russia Sergei Kirienko, himself sometime, in 1999, was the head of the young faction of Russian liberals in parliament. And now, 22 years later, he returned the Democrats who had dropped out in 2003 to parliament.
On the one hand, everyone remained their own – Vyacheslav Volodin in the chair of the speaker, United Russia – in the status of a constitutional party, that is, an absolute majority …
But not everything is so simple.
Firstly, the number of Duma committees has grown from 24 to 32 – in the logic of conservation it was necessary to leave the maximum number of committees to the previous bosses, and not to offend the new ones. So, “New People” received two committees, and the LDPR, which fell almost twice, retained its previous four. Someone said, they say, the communists will be punished for their intractable position and unwillingness to recognize the results of electronic voting – but no, the communists retained all their main committees, and instead of the Committee on Civil Society and Religious Organizations, Sergei Gavrilov, elected from Voronezh and Belgorod, returned to the post of head Property Committee.
To increase the number of committees in the new parliament, they were divided by budding – there was a Committee for Sports, Tourism and Youth Policy, there were three separate committees. But not always, for some high-ranking first-time deputies the committees were enlarged, as, for example, under the former Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Dmitry Kobylkin, a committee of the same name was created. By the way, the environmental agenda will be a very important component of the lawmaking of the new Duma – in light of the fact that Vladimir Putin is going to announce at the World Climate Forum in Glasgow, Scotland in November about Russia’s big plans to combat climate change, environmental standards will have to be changed very soon.
The topic of fighting poverty will become one of the main topics on the agenda for the coming years. It cannot be ruled out that the authorities will accept in one way or another the pre-election proposal of “Fair Russia – For Truth” on a fair basic income. Another thing is that it will concern exclusively citizens living below the subsistence level and support for large families.
The new Duma can support the recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. This will be especially relevant in light of the threat of military aggression from Kiev. The scenario of establishing diplomatic relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia will repeat itself. Moreover, the first prime minister of the DPR, Alexander Borodai, was elected to the new convocation.
Perhaps most importantly, the presidential elections of 2024 and the previous selection of a likely successor will fall on the period of this parliament’s work. Although, according to the stylistically accurate remark of the Chairman of the Parliament Vyacheslav Volodin, “after Putin there will be Putin.” At least, the current elite is vitally interested in preserving the power of the incumbent president, therefore it will persuade him to stay at the helm to the last.
