Well yes, Deputy Speaker of the State Duma is clearly a top state leadership position, so yesterday Russia gained yet another leader.
Congratulations to everyone.
What do we know about Andrei Isaev?
His wife was listed as the owner of an undeclared hotel in Germany (that terrible, terrible Europe), purchased with income from unknown sources.
When Isaev was caught with this hotel, he said it was a shelter for Orthodox pilgrims, after which we all had a chance to see that during Great Lent (the major Orthodox fasting period before Easter), Deputy Isaev feeds Orthodox pilgrims delicious pork knuckle.
Deputy Isaev is sharp-tongued, witty, and never at a loss for words:
Isaev’s most recent known contribution to state-building was getting drunk with his aide and causing a disturbance on a plane, after which he was removed from the flight.
So this is the Deputy Speaker of the State Duma of the Russian Federation that we now have.
In the beautiful Russia of the future that we will build, this will not be possible, because the criminal liability we introduce into the Criminal Code for illicit enrichment will stop a public figure like this at item 1 of the list above.
The bill for which we are collecting 100,000 signatures offers A. Isaev not a high state office, but up to seven years in prison.
P.S. Oh, I forgot: it would still be fair to point out that Isaev is perhaps the only high-ranking member of United Russia (the Kremlin-aligned ruling party) who is not afraid to take part in debates. You can’t take that away from him, but we still won’t forgive him for the hotel.