The Kremlin Created a Center to Promote Constitutional Amendments

The structure, led by an official curating work with Yandex in the presidential administration holds preparatory meetings on constitutional amendments voting. The Russian authorities created a structure to promote constitutional amendments and increase turnout in the State Duma elections in 2021. This was reported by the portal of journalistic investigations "Project" on Wednesday, February 26, with reference to three sources familiar with the new organization. According to them, it was created by the Kremlin in November 2019 with the participation of Sberbank and the Moscow government and was called the "Risk Management Center". The center, registered as an autonomous non-profit organization (ANO) named Dialog. It was headed by Alexei Goreslavsky, who previously supervised the Internet in the presidential administration, including interaction with Yandex. Now Goreslavsky is holding meetings with officials and political strategists on the subject of preparations for voting on constitutional amendments and elections. The center is also engaged in targeted political advertising, including in social networks, for which technologies that determine user data are used. The office is located near the Yandex headquarters Initially, the vice-president of Sberbank, Andrei Zavarzin, was appointed director general of ANO Dialog, the Project said in a statement. The center’s office is located on the territory of the Krasnaya Roza business center on Frunze Street - in the same place as Yandex headquarters. At the same time, the head of the "Dialogue" Goreslavsky and Yandex claim that the company does not participate in the work of the center, the "Project" notes. In November 2019, Kommersant wrote about the creation of the Dialog ANO in Moscow, calling the organization a center for monitoring and analyzing feedback from residents. At the same time, the corresponding order of the Moscow Mayor became unavailable sometime after being published on the city hall's website. Voting on constitutional amendments will be held on April 22 The amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on January 15 could radically change the system of government in Russia. The Russian leader, in particular, proposed consolidating the status of the State Council in the Basic Law, giving the State Duma the right to approve not only the prime minister, but also all members of the government; increase the role of governors in the decision-making process, and introduce priority over international law, which means revising one of the main constitutional provisions. For this, in particular, the Constitutional Assembly must be convened. But the law on its convocation has not yet been adopted in the Russian Federation; the principle of its formation in the federal constitutional law has not been defined. The vote on constitutional amendments is scheduled for April 22.