Oleg Kovalev added the new faction now included nine parliamentarians, which meant that the State Duma, the lower chamber of parliament, had two factions with the same name.
Kovalev also said that the committee would soon propose amendments to the regulations saying that two eponymous factions must also include the name of the party that their members represented during the elections. If these amendments are adopted, the factions will have to re-register their new names.
The newly formed Homeland faction led by Baburin will be given with a special office, and its members will be assigned to certain seats at plenary sessions.
Dmitry Rogozin, the leader of the other, more established Homeland, said earlier that his party would consider going to court if the Duma registered the faction.
Kovalev in turn said that this unpleasant situation, as he called it, was caused by a practice of parties running for parliament (specially in December 2003) as part of an election bloc.
Then a left-wing nationalist bloc, Homeland, united a few parties, including Rogozin's Homeland and Baburin's Narodnaya Volya (People's Will). After the elections, the parties merged into a single Homeland party.
Kovalev refused to specify whether Baburin would retain his position as a Duma deputy speaker.
Earlier, Rogozin's Homeland insisted on replacing Baburin, who was expelled from the Homeland faction in the Duma for "actions designed to cause a split in the faction and compromise its reputation."
Then a number of his supporters said they would follow their leader and leave Homeland, so they applied to register a new faction called People's Will. However, the regulations committee refused to register them with that name, as the parliamentarians had been elected as members of the Homeland election bloc, and could not be called anything else.
