The reform promises to make authorities more responsible to the nation and the state, says Vyacheslav Volodin, Vice-Speaker of the State Duma, the federal parliament's lower house.
Gubernatorial elections certainly need a reform. Regional governors and autonomies' presidents have recently enjoyed unlimited power, while there are no legal acts to stipulate their duties. Russia has never seen an instance of a governor dismissed before his term, remarked Mr. Volodin.
He thinks President Putin had every reason to offer a new arrangement. It delegates gubernatorial elections to regional diets on nominations made by the federal President. The pattern will enhance gubernatorial responsibilities-a governor will be accountable to the federal President and the regional legislature alike. The new way will provide reliable guarantees of civil rights and freedoms, stressed the MP.
The reform will offer an easy pattern of pre-term elections in case a governor does not cope, he added.
"I think the Duma will approve the presidential initiative," said Volodin.
It is high time, too, to introduce a system of proportional representation in parliamentary elections. The present-day half-hearted arrangement is to give way to the best-possible model of representative authority, in which the political party in office will be directly accountable to the population. A party whose MPs are failures will lose, the Duma leader went on.
He called to enhance the personal responsibility of political parties' activists who run for the Duma, and to tie party tickets to particular parts of the country. "The people must know their candidates, instead of voting impersonal tickets," stressed Vyacheslav Volodin.
Dmitri Rogozin, Rodina (Motherland) parliamentary group leader, also approved President Putin's idea of proportional representation in parliamentary elections. The arrangement is to concern not only the State Duma but regional diets, as well, he remarked.
The federal President nominating governors will "put an end to blackmailing federal ruling bodies and trespassing the Constitution". The prospective reform will offer "a transparent executive system", expects Mr. Rogozin.
