The candidacy of Sidyakin for the post of head of the new committee was proposed by the leader of United Russia, Dmitry Medvedev. The party published its list of candidates for committee chairmanships together with a proposal to retain Vyacheslav Volodin as speaker of the lower house.
Citing Vedomosti, the new structure will handle matters of technological development. A source for the publication specified that this concerns "different components of the new economy": marketplaces, drones and artificial intelligence. The committee will also oversee the creative industries.
At present these areas are distributed among other committees. Marketplaces and the creative economy fall under the committee on economic policy, drones under the committee on industry, and AI predominantly under the committee on information policy. Another name for the new structure was also discussed: the committee for ensuring technological leadership.
The 48-year-old Alexander Sidyakin served as a deputy across three convocations of the State Duma. Since 2021 he has headed the central executive committee of United Russia; before that he spent three years leading the administration of the head of Bashkortostan, Radiy Khabirov.
Sidyakin gained wide prominence in the early 2010s. In 2012 he became one of the principal co-authors of the bill on "foreign agents": the status was to be assigned to NGOs engaged in political activity and receiving foreign funding. At the time the deputy explained his position as follows: there are two options - either to speculate about "multimillion-dollar tranches from state departments supposedly for the development of democracy," or to legalize foreign agents and "unambiguously perceive them as conduits of the interests of other states."
That same year Sidyakin became one of the initiators of a multiple increase in fines for violations at rallies - up to 1.5 million rubles. The bill was adopted after the May 6 protests on Bolotnaya. In 2014 he was a co-author of a bill on criminal liability for repeat violations at actions: those punished administratively more than twice within six months faced up to five years in prison.