Sensational events are unfolding in the Russian Duma. Three members of the pro-government United Russia party’s faction have resigned their seats over just two days. The Chairman of the Duma Committee on Parliamentary Ethics and United Russia MP Vladimir Pekhtin announced his resignation from the Russian legislature on February 20. Gazeta.ru reports that on the same day, another United Russia legislator and billionaire businessman Anatoly Lomakin, whose fortune is estimated at 1.2 billion dollars, has decided to resign his seat in the State Duma citing health problems.
The day before, yet another United Russia MP Vasily Tolstopyatov resigned his seat. The media name him as owner of shares and other equity in Kubansky Bacon, Ltd. and Kubansky Holding, Ltd. as well as several dozen farmland properties.
Pekhtin served four consecutive terms in the State Duma. When giving his last speech in the parliament, he made no secret of the reason for his departure being the scandal surrounding his undeclared property holdings in Miami that had broken out after member of the opposition Coordination Council and lawyer Alexei Navalny’s publication of documents confirming the MP’s ownership of real property abroad valued at two million dollars.
Navalny’s accusations, which Pekhtin tried to disprove at first, were followed by the MP’s year-old video record circulating widely on the Internet, showing him proudly declaring his love for Russia and pride of his Russian citizenship. The Internet campaign added spice to the story.
Let us recall that the State Duma deprived another United Russia legislator Alexei Knyshov of his seat in October 2012 after the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office had received response from their Slovakian counterparts stating that the Russian MP had co-founded Inbister, Ltd. company in Slovakia.
The Day asked independent Russian journalist Semen Novoprudsky to explain the current developments in Moscow linked to the United Russia legislators’ resignations.
“Clearly, it was not a matter of free choice for them. In fact, all of them, even the better known Pekhtin, are not the political faces of the current government and have no real influence in shadow politics, much less on the public political scene. Therefore, it looks like the Russian government selected them for a ritual sacrifice that can be made without losing any influential figure. On the other hand, it allows the government to say: ‘See, we are honest, we do not just deprive opposition MPs of their seats, as we treat both them and pro-government politicians equally under the law.’ However, there are problems with this approach. Firstly, should they be consistent, at least a half of United Russia legislators will lose their seats, because they either are engaged in business activities or own some property abroad. Secondly, Pekhtin’s resignation and his statement that he does not want his party to be cast in a bad light, send a strong signal to the elites, telling them that nobody is safe when the top leadership is getting rid of the wrongdoers because it wants to save face and to preserve the status quo. This is an obvious sign that even former comrades will be disposed of when the regime has entered its cannibalistic phase. Clearly, this signal has little to do with the government yielding to the opposition’s demands, and the non-systemic opposition has nothing to celebrate, as this story is a show case, having nothing to do with any opposition, which will be persecuted as relentlessly as it has been to date. It is linked to the government’s survival strategy that involves some kind of populist approaches.
The current Duma is an amazing institution. The fact is it has outdone all preceding post-Soviet Dumas combined in depriving its members of their seats. The executive is actively discrediting the legislature now. It is another matter that it is easy to discredit because the Duma has never enjoyed Russian society’s confidence. Roughly speaking, the executive is sacrificing minor pieces for now, but hopes to win the game, that is, to preserve the political status quo. It understands that it is better to pretend now to fight corruption in public, so the United Russia politicians should be targeted, too. It is clear, nonetheless, that, say, Lomakin will retain his fortune. These are ritual sacrifices that do not threaten the deep structures of power.”
