STATE DUMA DEPUTIES FIGHT WITH THEIR DRIVERS AND SCHOOLCHILDREN

State Duma deputies' conduct is very improper. They fight with their drivers, fight with schoolchildren, behave impertinently, etc. Such information was released by the Chairman of the State Duma Commission on Ethics, Galina Strelchenko, at a Duma's plenary session. As she said, during the current year alone the commission registered over 400 complaints about the people's deputies' improper conduct. As an example, Strelchenko cited a "flagrant case of fight between a State Duma deputy and a driver of the Duma's motor-transport depot". According to her, there was also a fact of a "deputy's rude interference with the use of force in a quarrel between schoolboys one of which was his son". Strelchenko said that at the moment in the commission there was information from a region that "a deputy, referring to his connections in the law-enforcement bodies, demanded that a fish pavilion be leased to him to sell his produce without submitting any relevant papers to this effect".

A great number of complaints about breaches of deputy ethics are related, according to Strelchenko, "to the periods of election campaigns". Besides, many complaints are lodged in connection with the deputies' failure to fulfil their election promises".

But these appear to be just minor things in comparison with other displays of deputies' manners. Nobody has been beaten, after all…

And today's State Duma session, by the way, was not free from "ethics" breaches. Vasili Shandybin, deputy from the Communist Party faction, made a speech in violation of the regulations, in which he reminded his colleagues that it was the birthday of Stalin, "a genius politician and military leader". Winding up his speech, the deputy foretold: "We will remember the enemies guilty of disintegration of the USSR by their names".