MOSCOW, October 17. /TASS/. The Central Election Commission of Russia refused to register an action group on the retirement age referendum, consisting of united regional groups with different wordings of questions, and terminated all the referendum initiation procedures at its meeting on Wednesday.
According to the Commission ruling, no application to register the action group made in accordance with the law was received within the prescribed timeframe. An address from thirteen united representatives of four groups that chose the fifth group’s question wording cannot be viewed as an application for registration, Commission Secretary Maya Grishina says. Registration of subgroups in 43 regions is required to register the federal group, she noted.
Nine members of the Commissioned voted for the ruling and one member was against it.
Action groups on all five questions were registered in 73 regions in total, Grishina said. The largest number of groups on a single question was equal to 24.
The Central Election Commission approved earlier five close wordings for the referendum against the retirement age increase.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed amendments to the pension legislation on October 3. Earlier on the same day, the Federation Council had voted for endorsing the changes in the national pension system that envision an increase in retirement age and also criminal proceedings for unjustified dismissal of soon-to-retire employees. The pension age is to be increased to 65 years from 60 years for men and to 60 years from 55 years for women.
Men will have the right to receive old-age social pensions upon turning 70 years old and women, upon turning 65. Until now, men turning 65 and women turning 60 could receive this type of pensions.
The document was overhauled in the second reading in the light of amendments introduced by Putin. Initially, the Russian government that submitted the bill to the State Duma, the lower house, had planned to raise the retirement age for women to 63, but Putin proposed to slash it to 60.
In addition, the bill enables men who have an employment record of 42 years and women with an employment record of 37 years to retire before they reach the official retirement age. Another amendment says that mothers are allowed to retire earlier if they have more than three children.
The bill reaffirms the current norms for getting funded pensions. Women have an opportunity to request them upon turning 55 years old and men, upon turning 60.
The bill stipulates that citizens who have worked more than 30 years in agriculture will receive additional support.