Translated material
Peace to the mayor
City governors will be dismissed without the participation of the prosecutor's office
Presidential amendments to the law “On General Principles of the Organization of Local Self-Government,” introduced to the State Duma on January 29, 2009, are undergoing preliminary processing in committees and factions and can be considered in the first reading in late February or early March. This was reported to a Vremya Novostei correspondent by United Russia parliamentarian Sergei Egorov, deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Local Self-Government, to which the bill was introduced.“There is no doubt that it will be accepted,” said Mr. Egorov. “And not because this is a presidential bill, but because it has been expected for a long time.” We are talking about introducing into legislation a norm allowing local representative legislative bodies to dismiss the heads of municipalities. In Russian conditions, the main recipients of this novel will be city Dumas and mayors - from regional centers to small towns and rural settlements. In this way, it will be possible to solve the problems of replacing municipal authorities without abandoning direct elections at this level and using law enforcement agencies as a power resource.
The struggle for spheres of influence at the municipal level has indeed been unusually fierce recently. Thus, last fall, the Public Chamber commission on local self-government and housing policy prepared a report in which it was noted that on average, once every three days in Russia, a mayor is removed from office or a criminal case is opened against him. In most cases, this occurs on the initiative of the regional governor. Conflicts between the heads of federal subjects and mayors of regional capitals are becoming especially acute.
The amendments introduced by President Dmitry Medvedev are obviously a kind of reaction to the current situation. Sergei Egorov explained the proposed scheme to a Vremya Novostey correspondent in general terms: “Representative bodies of local self-government plan socio-economic development, approve budgets, adopt other programs, and all this is approved as normative acts. The head of a municipality, for example the mayor of a city, is obliged to organize the implementation of all decisions made. It is expected that representative bodies will annually hear a report on the activities of the head of the municipality. No one is saying that the mayor must be removed; he can be praised for his good work. Or initiate the process of removal from office if the situation worsens due to the fault of the mayor himself.”
Representatives of the expert community, whom the Vremya Novostei correspondent asked to comment on this legislative innovation, turned out to be quite critical in their assessments. “This is again an attempt to put mayors under administrative control,” says political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin. “Legislative assemblies are controlled mainly by United Russia, and through party influence it is possible to change a mayor who does not satisfy the higher authorities.” According to Mr. Oreshkin, “this is anti-democratic, because according to Article 12 of the Constitution, self-government is not part of the state system of government, and accordingly the mayor would have to obey only the voters - they elected him, they can recall him at the next elections or through court". The expert recalls that the law on local self-government, which is being amended, was supposed to come into force on January 1, 2009, but in reality it is stalling.
“The reform as such has not fully begun, the situation in the regions is very different,” Oksana Goncharenko, a leading expert at the Center for Political Conjuncture, agrees with her colleague. -- Municipalities do not have the authority to provide independent material support and, as a rule, receive funds from regional budgets. We are not yet talking about a full-fledged reform of local self-government in such conditions. Therefore, at this stage, such amendments may entail primarily political consequences. We are talking about expanding the corridor of opportunities for administrative pressure on mayors.”
But the head of the Public Chamber commission on local self-government and housing policy, Leonid Davydov, does not agree with such assessments. “I don’t understand why they say that this is a clamp, tightening the screws,” he told a Vremya Novostey correspondent. - On the contrary, it will be positive. Now the mayor cannot be removed except through the left ear, with the prosecutor's office and the court. And now mayors will be removed not only by a court decision and the proposal of the prosecutor’s office, but with a public discussion in the relevant legislative body. In essence, this is an attempt to move conflicts from behind the scenes to the sphere of public policy.”
Nevertheless, Mr. Davydov does not deny that the law in its current form may require correction: “The amendments, as they are proposed now, do not clearly define the procedure itself, and it must be worked out down to the point so that it is like the Bible. For example, it must be clearly defined for what the mayor can be removed. Not just “for improper performance of duties,” but for specific offenses. The procedure for removal from office must also be clearly spelled out.”
Sergei Egorov evaluates the bill from the same position. “We are increasing the representativeness of the population in resolving issues of local importance,” he told a Vremya Novostey correspondent. - And we are just strengthening Article 12 of the Constitution, since we are adopting a norm according to which the population, through local government bodies, decides to recall their leader. Thus, this process moves even further away from the influence of the state. We will protect mayors from the voluntarism of officials.”
Meanwhile, while legislators are preparing the document for the first reading, news feeds continue to be replenished with new facts for the collection of the Public Chamber commission. On February 12, the investigative committee of the prosecutor's office for the Moscow region opened a criminal case against the head of the town of Pushchino near Moscow, Anatoly Afanaskin. The mayor is suspected of abuse of power. And on February 13, right during the court hearing, the former mayor of Tomsk, Alexander Makarov, had a heart attack, against whom a criminal case was opened two years ago. Mr. Makarov is charged with 14 counts of criminal activity - from receiving bribes to storing drugs on a particularly large scale. These examples involuntarily cast doubt on the fact that in modern Russian realities, conflicts between power groups implicated in systemic contradictions can be translated into the plane of civilized politics as easily as it seems to apologists for the norm of removing mayors through city Dumas.
"Bad" Samaritans
According to a number of local media reports, the only mayor in the country representing A Just Russia, the head of Samara, Viktor Tarkhov, may leave his post early. This development of events will become possible if the Duma of the Samara Region adopts a new regional law “On the extension and shortening of the terms of office of heads and representative bodies of municipalities.” According to the law, uniform days for holding municipal elections should be introduced in the region, the nearest of which is October 10, 2010.
If passed, the law would, among other things, cut the term of office of Samara's mayor, who was elected in October 2006 to govern the city for five years, by a year. In comments to local media, the mayor's press service has already announced the political background of what is happening.
If the idea is realized, such a development of events could indeed be beneficial to many political forces in the region. In particular, the regional administration headed by Governor Vladimir Artyakov, which does not get along too well with the administration of Mr. Tarkhov.
The bill has already been discussed at a joint meeting of regional Duma committees. In the near future it should be sent for discussion to the municipalities of the region. It is expected that after this the document will be submitted for approval to a plenary meeting of the regional Duma by the end of February or in March.
In the second round of elections for the mayor of Samara in October 2006, the then head of the regional branch of the Party of Life, which later merged with A Just Russia, Viktor Tarkhov won 56.31% of the votes, defeating the nominee of United Russia and the then-current Samara mayor Georgy Limansky, who received 40.62% of the votes.