Municipal elections in Moscow

March 4 is another single voting day in Russia.
On this day, not only the presidential elections of the Russian Federation will take place (there will be a lot of talk about them in this LJ), but also local and regional elections. Unfortunately, nothing interesting will happen in Yekaterinburg and its immediate surroundings on this day, but elections of deputies to municipal assemblies will be held in Moscow.

Here I must first spend some time on a general brief educational program regarding the subject of further conversation:

Moscow and St. Petersburg are two cities that are simultaneously subjects of the Russian Federation. This leads to the fact that the municipal and regional levels of government are very cunningly structured in them.

Here everything is simple for us: there is the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, there is the Legislative Assembly of the Sverdlovsk region, there is the budget of the Sverdlovsk region (70% of the personal income tax goes there, part of the income tax, income from the management of regional property, and some other little things), and There are powers of the regional authorities, which are financed from this budget. And there is the Head of the Administration of the city of Yekaterinburg with his administration, there is the Yekaterinburg City Duma, there is the budget of the municipal formation "city of Yekaterinburg" (30% of personal income tax, land tax, UTII, income from the management of municipal property, and some other little things), and There are powers of the municipal government (28 powers provided for by law 131-FZ), which are financed from this budget.

But in Moscow and St. Petersburg everything is lumped together: in St. Petersburg at least the regional level of government is correctly called (the governor of St. Petersburg and the Legislative Assembly), and in Moscow for some reason they are generally “the mayor of Moscow” and the “Moscow City Duma,” but the essence is the same and the same - they were given all the powers of the regional authorities, and all the powers of the municipal authorities, and the entire budget that would be collected by Moscow (St. Petersburg) as a region and as a municipality.

But at the same time, neither Moscow nor St. Petersburg are municipalities, they are subjects of the Federation! Instead, each of these two cities is divided into a huge number of municipalities - “intra-urban territories of cities of federal significance.” In Moscow there are 125 such municipalities (that is, each has an average population of about 100 thousand people), in St. Petersburg - 111 (that is, approximately 40 thousand inhabitants per municipality). Why can they only be called “municipalities, as it were”? Because they do not exercise even a tenth of the powers of the municipality corresponding to 131-FZ, and, most importantly, they do not have their own budget, do not collect revenue, and cannot influence its replenishment. In fact, they live according to a modest estimate released from the regional level, which is spent on the implementation of the powers that are entrusted to these municipalities - the most significant of these powers, it seems, is the maintenance of indoor sports grounds. Real power in Moscow is exercised along the vertical line of mayor's office - districts - prefectures, and is in no way correlated with municipalities and their municipal assemblies, they generally exist on their own; in St. Petersburg, as far as I understand, the situation is similar.

But despite this, in each such intra-city municipality, both in Moscow and St. Petersburg, a municipal assembly is elected - a fully functional analogue of the City Duma in an ordinary Russian city. In a typical Moscow municipal assembly there are 20 deputies (depending on the population of the municipal district, which can range from 4 (Molzhaninovo) to more than 200 thousand inhabitants), in a typical St. Petersburg - 10 deputies, who are elected, as a rule, in multi-member electoral districts. These are small representative bodies. It is as if in Yekaterinburg, in addition to the city administration and the seven district administrations subordinate to it, there would also be an elected “Duma of Concrete Concrete Products”, “Duma of the Pionersky Village”, “Duma of Vtorchermet”.

By this point, the reader is already thinking that I am disdainful of “intra-city municipalities,” but this is not so. I really like the idea of ​​local self-government, I talk about it a lot and often, I completely agree with the main idea from the third part of the wonderful conversation between Akunin and Navalny - the idea that people are not idiots, that they can and should be trusted to make their own decisions about about how they should live further and arrange the spaces around them. In fact, it would be very cool if we had (endowed with real powers) a “Duma of Vtorchermet”, which would meet once a month, in the evenings, after work, in one of the rooms of the local recreation center, and would resolve issues of regional importance - would improve the school grounds and restore court lighting, would determine the optimal places for public transport stops and would be interested in the condition of the network of pedestrian paths, would seek the installation of speed bumps at the clinic, and change the operating mode of the traffic light at the exit of the microdistrict, would determine the sequence of repairs to courtyards passages and replacement of garbage cans, would work with citizens’ requests on the smallest issues... would solve a bunch of issues of the urban environment, so important for the comfort of everyday life, and so unnoticeable and objectively too numerous, if you look at them from the level of the Yekaterinburg mayor’s office (the more, returning to the topic of our conversation, from the level of the Moscow City Hall).

The Moscow municipality with its approximately 100 thousand inhabitants (almost exactly equal to the Parisian arrondissement) is a sound and good idea, spoiled, as is usually the case with us, by bad implementation. Its stupidity (and this is also very typical) is in excessive paternalism, in distrust of people, their ability to make adequate decisions and adequately manage money in their own interests. (This distrust so permeates the entire system of distribution of powers in the Russian state structure that it raises suspicions of hatred towards their people, which apparently guided the authors of this system). The end result is what looks like ridiculous municipalities: with municipal assemblies, but without budgets and powers.

And yet there is a lot of meaning in all this. The existence of intra-city municipal assemblies gives rise to elections in them, which are held every four years - and any elections in our realities become the most important political event and instrument. During the election campaign, you can legally and en masse convey all sorts of correct ideas to wide circles of people, and any elections are an excellent practical school of public policy. Elections are extremely important as a test of leadership, a test of the ability to organize a team, create clear materials, and convey your thoughts to people. It is imperative to participate in the elections - I spoke about this many times, and, no matter what it costs me, I tried to confirm my words with deeds.

Specifically, the Moscow municipal elections are also a great opportunity not only to take part, but also to win, and this means gaining doubly invaluable experience. The point here is precisely that Moscow municipal assemblies mean little and decide little, and therefore no one is trying to spend huge budgets on elections there. In addition, these elections are held in multi-member districts, that is, in order to be elected, it is not even necessary to take first place; practice shows that a normal person “from the street”, with adequate effort, can get into the “coveted top five”. Thus, by participating in elections, you can gain not only experience of political work within the framework of one campaign, but also experience of real parliamentary work over the next four years, a very important, in fact, experience of survival in the bureaucratic system, experience of negotiations and achievements compromises. Both elections and work in municipal assemblies are a living, practical, non-game school of leadership, a school of politics. In the end, even despite all the meagerness of Moscow municipalities, there remains a very real chance to do something concrete and useful for your area, something that will remain on the map of Moscow for a long time even after the end of your term of office.


That’s why I look with great joy at how, in the wake of recent civic activism, in the wake of the fact that talking and thinking about politics has suddenly become fashionable, many normal young people decided to move from words to deeds and try themselves as candidates for elections to various Moscow municipal assemblies. This is very cool and correct!

From Yekaterinburg there is little that can be done to help with this correct movement, but still.
Firstly, you can share your experience. I have written some “candidate notes” from my successful campaign for the City Duma three years ago; everyone didn’t get around to structuring and putting them in order - I publicly undertake to do this during January and put it in the public domain so that this knowledge could be useful for Moscow municipal candidates during their campaign. I haven’t posted it yet - I’m ready to work in question-answer mode. I already have a little experience of this kind - in December, Max Katz (who will be discussed below) dragged me for half an hour to a meeting that the Yabloko party held for candidates for municipal deputies in its Moscow office, and although there was very little time, I tried to tell in a very concentrated form all the most important things about a low-budget election campaign and answer the main questions. (Max has a detailed photo report on his blog, there were some funny hiccups, but overall everything went very efficiently and, it seemed to me, with great benefit. I have a bad attitude towards the leadership of the Yabloko party in general, and towards Mitrokhin in particular , but the fact that Yabloko came up with the idea of ​​providing organizational and legal support to candidates for municipal deputies is a very correct and timely initiative).
Secondly, of course, I want to support whoever I can in a targeted manner. I will also donate money to the election fund, and I just want to advertise - look, among my readers there will be those who live in the corresponding part of Moscow.

Among them are two people whom I am very proud to call my friends (I hope they will not deny me this right):
Municipal Assembly of the Konkovo ​​District - Boris Livshits
Municipal Assembly of the Shchukino District - Maxim Kats

I know I’m fighting, it’s a terrible thing, I’ve been fighting for 15 years already - from school, from our Lyceum. He is very smart and very cool, and, by the way, he was one of the very first who, in the fall of 2008, supported my strange (at that time not at all fashionable) decision to run for city deputies. On the contrary, I met Max only three months ago, at the “Last Autumn” festival, but since then I have not missed a single post on his blog, one of the most interesting Russian-language blogs about cities and urban planning. Well, in general, Max Katz, the first Russian poker champion (!), is a very interesting and multifaceted person.

Well, so that not only Katz and Livshits are on the list
And in conclusion, I would like to mention two more candidates whom I do not know personally, but whose social activities I follow and find attractive:
Municipal Assembly of the Yuzhnoye Tushino District - Vera Kichanova
Municipal Assembly of the Otradnoye District - Mikhail Velmakin

This list can certainly be expanded; if we know each other, or if you think that we are close in views and ideas, and you are going to municipal elections in Moscow, write - maybe I can add a couple of votes to you. And, of course, I’m happy to answer any questions.

UPD.: Here is the first addition to the list:
Municipal Assembly of the Sviblovo District - Kirill Shulika

Original