Farid Mukhametshin: ‘Rich people started to build cottages and houses around large water bodies…’
Falling real income, lack of morgues in the villages and preparation of Tatar United Russia party’s members to unpredictable results of the State Duma elections.
Tatarstan's parliamentarians call the upcoming deputies elections to the Russian State Duma the openest ones due to the general pre-elections. At the same time, this fact makes the elections the most unpredictable: not only the party members, but everyone who wants to vote, including the opposition, can choose a candidate for deputy from the United Russia party on primaries. As a correspondent of Realnoe Vremya has heard, not only the United Russia party members will be allowed to vote. Therefore, the politicians assure, it is impossible to predict who will be a candidate for deputy.
Mysterious deputies
Less than half of a year left till an official elections appointment to the Russian Parliament. However, a candidate list from Tatarstan is unclear yet and won't be clear in the nearest months. It has become known on Thursday during an enlarged session of political council of the Republic social movement Tatarstan-Noviy Vek (TNV), a chairperson of which is a speaker of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan Farid Mukhametshin, and the TNV movement itself is friendly with the United Russia party. Thus, State Duma deputy from Tatarstan Ildar Gilmutdinov said to Realnoe Vremya that the topic of a nomination for a new term of parliamentarians hasn't been even discussed and before primaries on 22 May, a candidate list won't be announced.
A deputy chairperson of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan Rimma Ratnikova told the same thing. 'It is absolutely impossible, we can't say anything before the primaries,' — she assured. Meanwhile, less than half of a year left till an official announcement of elections. As a chairperson deputy of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation Valentina Kamen'kova reported, the President of Russia officially will appoint the elections from 30 May to 30 June. Also, from that day, a statement-taking process on a candidate registration starts, and at the end of the summer pre-election campaigns begin. The elections itself will be held on 16 September 2016.
'At least, we will try to keep the amount of our deputies in the State Duma, and, maybe, to increase it. It is important for us, that 2.9 million voters from Tatarstan are presented by effective deputies and they lobby interests of the Republic residents at federal level. Now, we are selecting those who would be able to meet these challenges,' – said a speaker of the State Council of RT. We would like to remind the readers that during the pre-New Year's meeting with journalists he also said to Realnoe Vremya that candidates from the party are unknown yet, but he promised to announce a list at the nearest future. Apparently, Tatarstan authorities already have an idea who they would like to see in deputies from the Republic.
The opposition will be able to influence on the United Russia members<o:p></o:p>
The inner-party pre-elections procedure itself – primaries – is not new for the United Russia party: Tatarstan practiced it during the elections to the State Council in 2014. However, on the federal elections it will be different and more open, as the party members say. So, not only the party members, but the non-party affiliated, who is over 21 years, has a higher-education and has not a criminal record, also will be allowed to present their candidacy. The members from other parties will have a right to choose too, even the non-system opposition. They will need just to come to a polling station with a passport and to vote as at usual elections. Besides, it was reported that the United Russia will forbid those, who win in an inner-party selection, not to run on elections, to run from another political unity or to be self-nominated.
'We will nominate our influential persons, too. This time, the pre-elections must be resulted in the situation when representatives from other parties could vote too, for the counters. Only those, who will be on the top of the list, will be supported by the United Russia,' – told Mukhametshin.
As he has noted several times, only the United Russia conducts a pre-election procedure, what indicates an openness of the party. In general, the reason is clear: during the elections in 2011 the United Russia got less than half of the votes.The previous elections were accompanied by protests all around Russia under the slogan 'For fair elections'. The biggest ones were at Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Street in Moscow, which gathered tens of thousands of people. The internet was flooded with notes from independent observers about manipulations with absentee voting certificates, carousel votings and about voters driven to polling stations on buses. PACE and OSCE international observers declared about numerous violations during the elections and authority's interference into a voting process. However, these statements didn't affect on the elections' results and the United Russia became a ruling party again. What's more, in Tatarstan its popularity has always been above average: at last elections it got almost 78% of votes.
Another innovation is that, 13 years after, the country is back to a mixed system of parliament formation: 225 deputies will be elected from party's list, and 225 – from single mandate electoral districts as independent deputies. Besides, Mukhametshin warned that the election campaign will be held in difficult 2016 and we must be prepared.
There is a lack of morgues and public beaches in Tatarstan
As Mukhametshin told, we already can make a conclusion what the deputies from Tatarstan of the next term will do. 'The Federal Centre started to revise some draft laws on teaching of Russian language,' – he reminded to the political council participants.
We would like to remind that a new concept of Russian language teaching can decrease the teaching hours of other national languages. Tatarstan parliamentarians have complained about this many times, also during last State Council session. Nevertheless, Mukhametshin is convinced that Tatarstan's prestige is growing on a federal level. He gave an example of the Republic's initiative on snuff prohibition, which has been adopted in the State Duma. But he didn't mention another, not adopted initiatives, such as severing of fire safety regulation [after a big fire in Admiral shopping center – editor's note]. 'We feel the demand in Tatarstan's experience to counteract extremism, to organize the work with migrants, we have 70 000 migrants now and 3 000 refugees from Ukraine.' – he told.
Besides, among the Republic's achievements he mentioned the fact that they have managed to minimize the economic crisis aftereffects. The Industrial Production Index (IPI) and GRP of RT are still on the level of 2014. But he admitted, that a business activity has decreased a little. Retail turnover has fallen 13 percent. The index of annual inflation in the Republic is 11 percent, that is lower than over all Russia. Real income has fallen on 7 percent, and the salaries – on 7.7 percent. Unemployment is only 0.8 percent. 'I think that the crisis will affect badly on this,' – told a head of Tatarstan parliament.
After the global problems they started to discuss the local – a lack of pathological-anatomical centres in the villages. 'Last days of citizens' visits have shown that there are still regions in Tatarstan, where there are no morgues. For example, in Alekseevskiy area, where I've been, there is no pathological-anatomical centres, and you need to go to Chistopol in order to get a medical evidence. And it is an urgent question for Tatars, who according to their religion, need to bury in the closest time,' – told Mukhametshin. According to his words, the parliament started the programme of building of cheaper module complexes.
But for the first time after many years Tatarstan provided all orphans, who were on the list, with homes, he reminded.
The problem of illegal construction in the waterside's zones was raised, that had a wide response after the speech of Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov during last RT Security Council meeting. They talked about building of the public beaches, that are so common near the elite housing buildings in Tatarstan, such as Borovoe Matushino. However, the topic stalled as quickly as it rose. 'We have a lot of waters in the Republic, but we were irresponsible about this: well, given by God, let it flow. Unfortunately, lakes started to silt and to be contaminated, rich people began to build houses and cottages around large water bodies, and they even terminated access to these recreational areas for people. We noticed that, and the President was very critical about supervisory authorities who ought to monitor. We will struggle against those, who once received a legal or illegal resolution,' – warned Mukhametshin.