"The 'titanic' parliamentary effort has only worsened the poor as it is electoral law. It will cause even greater popular mistrust in the elections and the parliament", independent deputy and a leader of the Committee-2008 (also called Russia Without Putin) Vladimir Ryzhkov has said.
The appeal, joined by representatives of non-governmental organizations, independent Duma deputies and some democratic parties such as SPS and Yabloko, talks of the need to delay the adoption of the new law.
"We believe that there is no need today of a hasty adoption of the new law because more than two years remain before the parliamentary elections", Ryzhkov read out the text of the appeal at the public hearings (the last parliamentary elections happened on December 7, 2003 with the SPS and Yabloko failing to overcome the five-percent barrier for getting into the State Duma).
Liberal politicians believe that Russia now is in need of preserving the possibility for electoral blocs to participate in the elections, not only for parties as the new law intends.
Liberals think unacceptable the threshold for entering the State Duma, fixed at seven percent for the future elections.
"We will insist on the preservation of electoral blocs by virtue of the immaturity of the party system. The seven-percent barrier is too much", Ryzhkov said.
In the opinion of the authors of the appeal, it is more expedient to work out a federal electoral code, which will reflect different points of view and interests existing in society.
Representatives of the Central Election Commission present at the public hearings voiced solidarity with politicians, saying that upon amending the new law is no longer meeting the democratic principles.
"In this way, the law has clearly deteriorated from the first wording. However, members of the Central Election Commission are not unanimous", Olga Zastrozhnaya of the CEC said.
The draft is expected to be adopted in second reading this week and may become effective 1.5 months later, experts say.
