Penza, 29 June 2016. PenzaNews. Georgy Kamnev, first secretary of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party, deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Penza region, who will be taking part in the State Duma election, invited his opponent in the Penza single-mandate election district No. 146 Sergei Yesyakov, current deputy of the State Duma, for public debate.

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“It is our opinion that the politics and this election must be as much public as possible. […] We need to give every man access to the information and evaluate the performance of each candidate, or, for example, a State Duma deputy. What do we suggest? We suggest a public debate. If candidates think they are able to argue for their position, let’s make a public debate. I invite Sergei Yesyakov for an open public debate at any time of his choosing,” Georgy Kamnev said during a meeting with journalists at the PenzaNews press center on Wednesday, June 29.

The leader of the Penza Communists suggested that the United Russia’s traditional modus operandi is “solving all main issues – staffing and the rest, such as politics and economics – somewhere behind the scenes.”

“So they sat there in an office, decided on something, made some conclusions, informed the public about something. This creates a terribly disbalanced situation where people want one thing, but the authorities want another. The people and the authority are not listening to each other,” he stressed.

Also, Georgy Kamnev pointed out that the upcoming election campaign has a slot for TV debates, but he thinks that “they have an entirely different purpose.”

“For example: we are prohibited from criticizing our opponents on the TV. Is this really debate?” he asked.

The first secretary of the CPRF regional committee asked the journalists present at the press conference to voice their ideas on holding a public debate.

“Where, how, in what manner should we hold them – let’s make a short discussion on it. What we want from you is just ideas, or maybe just for you to come and tell us something. This is very important. Nobody did it before: let’s do it. We have this opportunity today. Let’s make a big campaign to pull those people out of the dark corners where they’re used to do their problem-solving,” the deputy said.