MOSCOW, April 17. /ITAR-TASS/. President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, April 17, has submitted to the State Duma (lower house of parliament) a draft law on parliamentary elections in Crimea and Sevastopol slated for September 14.

Head of the Republic of Crimea and the governor of Sevastopol will be elected by the deputies of the Crimean State Council (parliament) and Sevastopol’s Legislative Assembly not later than December 2014.

On April 11, the Crimean State Council approved a joint appeal from Crimea and Sevastopol’s Legislative Assembly to President Vladimir Putin, asking him to hold parliamentary elections not in 2015 but in September 2014.

“We ask you to support our initiative to conduct elections to the State Council of the Republic of Crimea and the Legislative Assembly of Sevastopol on the second Sunday in September 2014,” the appeal said. “Considering the promptness and scale of the measures being taken by the Russian Federation to integrate the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol into the economic, financial, credit and legal systems of the Russian Federation, we hereby state our readiness to start considering and adopting necessary legal acts to accelerate the integration of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol into the system of government of the Russian Federation,” the document said.

The electoral system in Crimea and Sevastopol will be ready for elections by summer, Russian Central Election Commission Chairman Vladimir Churov told ITAR-TASS.

“We are keeping up with the schedule,” he said, adding that it would take up to 240 million rubles to provide electoral commissions in Crimea and Sevastopol with the Vybory voting and communication system and another 160 million rubles will be needed for salaries to members of the electoral commission, the printing of ballots and other related costs.

“We have already filed a request for funding with the government but we have started working within the available budget or we would not have done it on time,” Churov said.

The elections in Crimea will be conducted according to a mixed system, Crimean State Council (parliament) Chairman Vladimir Konstantinov said.

“Fifty deputies will be elected on party lists and 25 in majority constituencies,” he said.

Party structures of the ruling United Russia party will be formed in Crimea by the end of May, Konstantinov said, adding that the party’s election program in Crimea would address most pressing issues such as salaries, pensions and social allowances with special attention to be paid to the fight against corruption, fascism and neo-Nazism.

United Russia General Council Secretary Sergei Neverov recalled that the founding conferences of the Crimean and Sevastopol regional branches of the party had been held on April 7.

“Work is underway to form local divisions in Crimea and public reception offices,” he said.

Legislative elections in Crimea and Sevastopol will be held on September 14.

Elections in Crimea and Sevastopol will be held on the second Sunday of September 2014. The State Council of Crimea (parliament), the government of Crimea and the Sevastopol City Council will continue to perform their functions until then.

By that time all key questions of the transitional period will have been solved, Konstantinov said.

He believes that this step is “clear and logical” as “the whole system of power is being overhauled”.

“Only when a new political system is created, people in Crimea get Russian passports and a financial system is built in the republic will we be able to talk about the elections,” Konstantinov said.

On March 18, at the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin, Crimean State Council Chairman Vladimir Konstantinov, Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov and Sevastopol Mayor Aleksei Chalyi signed a treaty under which “the Republic of Crimea is deemed to have been admitted to the Russian Federation.” “From the day of the Republic of Crimea’s admission to the Russian Federation, new constituent members — the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol as a city of federal importance — shall be created in the Russian Federation,” the document said.

Under the reunification treaty, the official languages of the Republic of Crimea are Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar.