Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted the referendum bill to the Duma on May 18. MPs proposed over two hundred amendments, of which thirty found their way into the draft.
The new bill provides a legal framework for plebiscites in Russia, identifying those who have the right to initiate one. Russian citizens have the prerogative, but authorities may also initiate a referendum in certain cases, specifically if an international treaty to which Russia is party prescribes that an issue of national importance or a draft law should be put to referendum.
As compared with the federal constitutional law of 1995, the new draft toughens the referendum initiative procedure. It requires that an initiative group should incorporate regional subgroups formed in more than a half of the Federation member states; each of the regional subgroups should be at least a hundred members strong.
Under the new referendum bill, at least 2 million signatures shall be collected in support of a plebiscite initiative; only regional subgroups have the right to collect them and only in those regions where they are registered.
Duma Vice Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, believes that established parties will have no problem collecting the 2 million signatures required by the bill. He says it takes into account the experience of the most recent presidential and parliamentary polls, but contains no legal or practical novelties.
