State Duma elections: Which of the deputies from Crimea will lose their mandate
Elections to the State Duma are scheduled for September, but holders of deputy mandates from Crimea have long been concerned about the prospects of re-election for a new term. Will representatives of the peninsula, many of whom ended up in Moscow for their services during the Russian Spring, be replaced in the new Russian parliament?
PolitNavigator asked Crimean experts about this.
Sergei Shuvainikov, ex-member of the Crimean Parliament:
“We have seven State Duma deputies from Crimea, but we hardly know or hear them, there is no work with the media at all. If we talk as a layman, then I did not notice their work, as a Crimean, that they brought in any specific Crimean problems.
I would like the State Duma deputies from Crimea to be people whom they knew and saw. This is our face. Except for Poklonskaya, but she solved her own problems, and the rest, I don’t know whose problems they solved. I am concerned that future deputies who will come to the State Duma make their voices heard and not sit silently. And we practically don’t see our deputies – neither at the federal level, in talk shows, nor on Crimean television. They are public people who should speak out and tell people what they are doing, what problems they pose, what laws they have. And you can hardly hear them. Only Andrei Kozenko publishes the newspaper “Russian Community” with a report, and then everything is distributed in a narrow circle. Their activity is very weak.”
Alexander Talipov, social activist:
“Only Balbec has the highest chance of survival. I don’t see any alternative among the Crimean Tatars to replace him. Although, to be honest and frank, the work with the Crimean Tatars has failed, no one is looking after them, and a large number of protest sentiments are due to the fact that there is no leader uniting all these people. Therefore, in principle, there is a possibility that other parties may use the Crimean Tatar factor and nominate an alternative candidate.
As for the other deputies, everything is ambiguous; I don’t think that any of them can run for a second term. I think a course will be taken to update United Russia, because its ratings are falling.
As for the candidates, there is not even any guess yet who it might be. I can assume that Natalya Poklonskaya will not run for United Russia. As for the other candidates, they had to work with the Crimeans for all these five years, but in fact, we only see PR statements that have no value. The same Poklonskaya promised to introduce special forces into Feodosia, and no one saw her again. She also came to Evpatoria and Sevastopol. People say that they have received nothing except unsubscribes.
There is such a ghost deputy, Mikhail Sheremet - it is not clear why he is kept in the State Duma. The man cannot put two words together, but he is one of the leaders in the number of bills introduced. At the same time, these are all collective bills, in which he simply adds notes. In fact, none of the deputies adopted bills useful for Crimea.”
Nikolay Kuzmin, political scientist:
“The people representing the republic will change. For now, I don’t want to comment on exactly how, but it’s a fact that there will be new people. New people from the party in power, because we will assume that there are no other political forces in Crimea. That is, they are formally present, but they do not work as political subjects.”
Denis Baturin, political scientist:
“The Crimean deputies, on the one hand, all have a chance to survive, on the other hand, each of them has, to a certain extent, different chances for this. This depends on relations in the region and on how they have proven themselves in the State Duma. At the moment, Natalia Poklonskaya has the least chance of being re-elected. As for the rest, it seems to me that the issue is being resolved at the moment.
Poklonskaya may well go as a self-nominated candidate and compete in one of the Crimean districts - she has a certain image and fame. The question is that for this it will be necessary to launch a fairly powerful technological campaign. The possibility of such a campaign raises my doubts. This is not a question of Natalia Poklonskaya’s resources - her resources are, first of all, image-based, I don’t think they are of a material nature of such a level as to fight in an alternative format. Surely, if she runs as a self-nominated candidate, then it will be about competition with the representative of United Russia. Therefore, there must be a powerful and serious technology campaign.”
Leonid Grach, ex-speaker of the Crimean parliament:
“There will be a small “injection” of current State Duma deputies from Crimea, because all of them are worthless, as it turned out. Everyone worked for themselves. The same Natalya, she is not at all aware of what she wants and why. I mean Poklonskaya. And, naturally, all those businessmen of ours who only exposed their interests and pursued their interests. Therefore, a big shake-up awaits us, and the party in power does not yet know what it will be like, where it will go and who will go from it, and so on. All this will be quite serious. For example, the same Evpatoria - they imprison each other. Now we stand at a big crossroads – Crimeans have a lot of problems.”
Andrey Nikiforov, political scientist:
“We have only one deputy from Crimea who was elected on the party list - a member of the LDPR, and in the constituencies all are United Russia nominees. Moreover, they are quite, I would say, tastefully selected, I think that they all have very decent chances not only to be nominated again from their party, but also to become deputies of the State Duma. As for party lists, there may be various nuances that cannot yet be fully resolved. I think that the beginning and middle of the year can change a lot, both in one direction and the other, that whatever may fall from this “United Russia” cart will be picked up by Zhirinovsky’s “falcons” and Zyuganov’s “chicks”. But I don’t predict such large drops... I think we will get approximately similar results to previous ones. Perhaps the trend will continue that Crimeans will be less and less friendly and willing to participate in the electoral processes.”
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.