Vladimir Putin's Public Reception offices are ineffective.
Ahead of the United Russia party Congress in November, its Chairman Vladimir Putin will hold another live question-and-answer TV session. He will also review the results of the work done by the party's regional public reception offices since their creation last autumn. Nezavisimaya Gazeta has found that the United Russia deputies charged with receiving citizens routinely shirk their duties. The party's leadership has threatened to impose severe sanctions on these failing officials. Governor Nikita Belykh will set a personal example of party discipline by working at one of these reception offices in October.
In early October it will be a year since Vladimir Putin's reception offices were created. When Vladimir Putin became the head of the United Russia party in April of last year he demanded greater internal party discipline. The signs are that his call has not been heeded. Federal, regional and municipal United Russia deputies were put in charge of the Prime Minister's reception offices. An electronic system to monitor the number and quality of such receptions was set up at the party's headquarters.
It turned out that the deputies have been reluctant to perform this public duty and have used every opportunity to shirk it. A party source told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that ever more deputies, senators and heads of local legislatures are failing to turn up at these centres. So depressing are the statistics that the party's leadership has decided to crack the whip on derelict lawmakers. Deputies elected on party tickets were threatened to be stripped of their mandates, speakers of regional parliaments to be fired and senators to be recalled.
The chairman of the commission for processing citizens' appeals to the Party Chairman, Mikhail Babich, did not deny that the problem exists: "Deputies who fail to conduct public reception sessions will have their service record reviewed and may be disciplined." When asked what punishment they could face, Mr Babich advised the questioners to look into the party charter which has a list of all the disciplinary measures.
The charter reads in part: "Members of the party who hold elective office in the governing and central party bodies, the governing and executive bodies of its structural units who fail to meet the charter requirements may be declared unfit for office." Mr Babich refused to reveal the number of shirkers saying it was information for internal use only.
Last week, as this newspaper has learned, regional coordinators of the Prime Minister's reception offices held a video conference. The Prime Minister's reception office in the Kirov Region was named and shamed. The party had spotted the discrepancy between reports on the reception of citizens in the electronic data base and the statistics provided by the regional branch. In other words, the United Russia Party in the Kirov Region is suspected of inflating their statistics. However, the coordinator of the Prime Minister's reception office in the Kirov Region, Lyubov Yegorushina, attributes this discrepancy to an electronic glitch.
To prove to the federal leadership that local members of United Russia are taking work in the Prime Minister's reception offices very seriously, they have persuaded governor Nikita Belykh to receive citizens personally. "Our governor is not a member of United Russia, but he will hold his first sessions in Vladimir Putin's reception office in mid-October. He knows that a lot of people go there with their problems," Ms Yegorushkina explained. Our correspondent could not reach Nikita Belykh by phone yesterday.
There is one more curious detail in the whole story. The central party leadership from the start put those involved in a relaxed mood. Last autumn it mailed letters to the deputies and senators demanding that they appoint their aides to work at the reception offices permanently. The MPs cheerfully followed these instructions believing that it relieved them of being present in person. Now the party bosses have realized their mistake.
However, local party leaders invariably develop a keen interest in the public reception offices as soon as they learn that the Prime Minister may visit their region. For example, Putin is expected to visit Murmansk in October to attend the first international economic forum there. NG has learned that on discovering this, the region's new governor, Dmitry Dmitrienko, had ordered the public reception office to be renovated and made it known that he intends to personally receive citizens in mid October.
Political scientist Dmitry Badovsky told NG: when it became obvious that the Prime Minister was not paying much attention to his public reception offices the deputies and senators relaxed. In his opinion, it is only the Prime Minister himself who can make his reception offices work more effectively by giving personal instructions to senators and deputies to deal with citizens' complaints. That would change their attitude dramatically: "If they were to get personal instructions from Putin they would queue up to conduct reception sessions."
Elina Bilevskaya