Common People Hate Politicians - 20 November, 2002 - News

Politicians’ major enemies are the voters who do not believe their lies

The Russian State Duma held the third and final reading of the new variant of the law pertaining to elections of the State Duma deputies to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. The law was approved on Wednesday, during a plenary session of the Russian parliament.

The law stipulates a vote minimum of seven percent for political parties and election blocs. This limit is fixed for State Duma elections. In addition , a deputy’s election fund is increased as well. Now, a deputy’s fund will make up six million rubles. The funds for election blocs are now increased to 250 million rubles.

The new minimum will accelerate the process of creating large gamblers in the political arena of Russia. Those who will not be able to cover gather the minimum number of votes will reach out for political monsters, like Unified Russia or the Communist Party of Russia. However, all of these things will happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. The new law will come into effect only in five years. Small parties have some time to relax now.

Five years is a very long period for a country in which things change so quickly. A lot of those people who voted for the law will leave the State Duma in the year 2003. Only a few parties managed to overcome the voting limit of five percent during the last elections to the Russian parliament in 1999. It is really interesting to know what is going to happen when the seven-percent barrier is instituted.

Politicians’ major enemies are the people who go to the polls to elect them. To be more precise, the people who do not believe their promises and those individuals who express their attitude to politics by not going to the polls at all. The newspaper Izvestia has recently published interesting facts on the subject.

Since 1996, the Harris Poll company has been changing its alienation index for the adult population of the United States of America. This index of alienation is based on people’s answers to five questions. These questions and answers allow to find out to what extent people are alienated from their governing bodies. This index fluctuated between 56 and 62 on the scale of zero to one hundred. The Russian Public Opinion Center used the Harris Poll’s experience and asked these questions to Russian respondents last year. As a result, it became known that the index of Russian people’s alienation made up 78%. This was 16% higher in comparison with the USA. The difference between Russia and the USA is especially large when it comes to the mass perception of authorities. The biggest kind of alienation in Russia is the alienation from the government. This index is 28% higher than in the United States.

Let’s leave the percentages alone and turn to ethics. Everybody knows about Vladimir Zhirinovsky's unethical behavior. However, very few people are aware of Lubov Sliska’s ethic norms (vice speaker of the Russian parliament). The State Duma has recently entrusted the parliamentary committee for ethics to investigate the validity of accusations against Lubov Sliska. She allegedly releases insulting statements against other deputies and even voters. This instruction was given to the committee in Lubov Sliska’s absence from the session. She is currently in Istanbul, chairing the Russian delegation that takes part in the autumn session of the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO. As it is expected, she is returning to Moscow tonight.

Dmitry Litvinovich PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov