Putin U-turns on his decision to impose voluntary 'primaries procedure' on other parties
SMOLENSK, Russia — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who also doubles as the leader of United Russia, the nation’s ruling political party, in a rare decision-revoking incidence, highly uncharacteristic of Russia’s strongman, unexpectedly reversed his highly questionable decision to impose a ‘carbon copy’ of the U.S. electoral system’s primaries on other political parties in the country, despite their openly vehement opposition to the foreign idea.
“United Russia will not impose on other parties a nationwide preliminary voting procedure, the local euphemism for ‘primaries’, to sel ect potential candidates for State Duma, even if it has the majority votes mandate to do so,” Putin told his party’s primaries winners in Smolensk, a city not very from Moscow. “If other political parties do want to follow suit that is their business, as such refusal will spell stagnation for such parties.”
The U-turn probably took Putin’s party functionaries, always ready to execute all the prime minister’s political wishes, by surprise. For instance, Oleg Morozov, State Duma’s first deputy speaker and a top United Russia party member, had previously said that the party was ready to table such bill in the parliament as early as September.
However, Putin, reversing his decision, did take a jab at the leaders of other parties that are against the primaries procedures, calling them ‘sellers of their party mandates’ to highest bidders. “I think those against primaries are those, who sell seats on their party lists, and are not interested in intraparty development, and that this means that they are not interested in the development of democracy in our country.”
Web design,