Russian State Duma allows regions to abolish direct election of governors

The MPs of the State Duma have passed in the third and final reading the law giving the regions the power to determine the procedure of electing their governors.

According to the law, should a region decide to abandon the direct election, the parties represented in the federal and regional parliaments will get the right to present the President of Russia with three candidates for the governor each. The President then will send any three of the nominees to the regional parliament, which will vest one of them with gubernatorial powers.

At the session of the State Duma on March 22, the bill was supported by 305 MPs, according to the official website of the State Duma.

The bill was passed with account of specificities of the regions of Northern Caucasus, said Igor Lebedev, one of the authors of the initiative and a Vice-Speaker of the State Duma from the LDPR. "There is no secret that in the current circumstances these amendments are adopted for the republics of Northern Caucasus," said Igor Lebedev.

He believes that the novelty is topical for Northern Caucasus, while "all other subjects of the Russian Federation will preserve direct elections and will not switchover to this system," the ITAR-TASS reports.