MOSCOW, December 21 (Itar-Tass) — The sixth State Duma on Wednesday will gather for the first meeting at which the lawmakers will elect the lower house chairman, his deputies, as well as will share among the parliament’s four factions portfolios of committees. However, the speaker, for the post of which the United Russia nominated former chief of the presidential administration Sergei Naryshkin, will most likely be elected only by the votes of deputies from this party.
The Communist (CPRF), Liberal Democratic (LDPR) and Just Russia party factions do not want to vote for Sergei Naryshkin as the house speaker, thus expressing disagreement with the official results of the December 4 elections, writes the Kommersant daily. The new State Duma will have a total of 29 committees (32 in the previous Duma). Fifteen of them will be chaired by persons nominated by United Russia (in the previous Duma the party got 26 committees). The CPRF faction on the “package deal” results got six committees, LDPR - four and Just Russia - also four committees.
It was announced that the speaker of the new Duma will have two first deputies - Alexander Zhukov from United Russia and Ivan Melnikov from CPRF, according to RBC Daily.
The parties are discontent with the redistribution, the publication noted. LDPR, for instance, hoped to get the post of the head of the international affairs committee, but United Russia members reserved for the party the old post of the CIS affairs committee. “We will carry our point in the negotiations until the beginning of a plenary meeting,” the faction leader Igor Lebedev told Kommersant. “And if we fail, we will vote for what has been agreed upon.” Irrespective of whether LDPR succeeds in getting one more committee or not, the faction will not vote for Sergei Naryshkin who has been nominated for speaker by United Russia.
The speaker's post, all the opposition factions explained to the publication, this time was not included in the “package deal,” although United Russia members hoped for consolidated support to Sergei Naryshkin from the whole house. However, the LDPR faction instead nominated its leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The Communist faction also has its candidate - first deputy chairman of the CPRF Central Committee Ivan Melnikov. The Just Russia faction intends not to vote at all for Naryshkin, because it will nominate Sergei Mironov. The reason for such a negative attitude to Sergei Naryshkin is explained in the opposition factions by the fact that “he has been nominated by the ruling party.” This circumstance did not prevent the same oppositionists from voting in the previous Duma for Boris Gryzlov who was nominated by United Russia.
However, “United Russia then had a constitutional majority, and now its advantage in the State Duma is challenged in any court of the country,” Igor Lebedev explained.
As is known, United Russia has generously shared the house posts with the opposition, writes Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Certain concessions continued also on Tuesday. CPRF succeeded in getting the post of the first vice speaker. Just Russia members demanded a new committee - for the housing and public utilities affairs and got it. On Tuesday, these decisions were confirmed at the latest meeting of the working group for the preparation of the first meeting of the State Duma.