Translated material
Bad and terrible
The scandalous dissolution of the Petrozavodsk City Council may further weaken the position of the head of Karelia
A week after the dissolution of the city council of Petrozavodsk, surrounded by the governor of the Republic of Karelia, Sergei Katanandov, they started talking about calling new elections for March 2007, the deputies who stopped the hunger strike filed lawsuits, and the mayor of the capital of Karelia, Viktor Maslyakov, stated that “there are no differences between the republican government of Karelia and the self-government of Petrozavodsk.” there is no disagreement." Nevertheless, analysts still count such an apparently amicable resolution of the conflict as a disadvantage for the head of the republic and begin to look for potential candidates for a replacement.A week ago, the Parliament of Karelia, on the initiative of the head of the republic, dissolved the Petrozavodsk City Council for non-compliance with federal laws. City deputies did not want to bring the charter of the Karelian capital into compliance with the law on local self-government after Sergei Katanandov included in the package of amendments the thesis about the abolition of popular elections for the mayor. Then city deputies nevertheless adopted the amendments, which the prosecutor's office and the courts insisted on, but the registration authorities refused to register the new charter due to procedural inaccuracies. And this allowed the head of the republic, for the first time in Russia, to apply the chapter of the law on local self-government, which allows the self-government body to be dissolved.
Let us recall that in the spring of 2005, amendments were made to the law on local self-government, prepared by the State Council of Tatarstan, thanks to which the authorities of the constituent entities of the federation received the right to independently determine the procedure for electing and the status of the heads of new municipalities. After this, the process of changing city charters began actively in order not to elect mayors publicly, but to choose from among the city council deputies with the transfer of administrative powers to a hired “city manager.” Since half of the seats on the competition commission belong to regional authorities, it becomes immeasurably easier for the governor to appoint his own person to the post of mayor.
The indignation of the Petrozavodsk City Council by the decision to dissolve was so strong that parliamentarians went on a hunger strike. At the end of last week - November 17 - it was stopped, since the deputies, according to them, achieved their goal - “the federal center learned about the persecution of local self-government in Karelia.” According to Alexander Kynev, an expert at the International Institute for Humanitarian-Political Studies, it was clear that the city council would be dissolved about a month ago - the head of the republic introduced a corresponding bill back in October. “All that the opposition did after that was a new election campaign, creating news stories, working for the protest electorate, the percentage of which is high in the region,” explained the Vremya Novostei expert.
At the same time, the head of the Center for Political and Social Research of Karelia, Anatoly Tsygankov, told Vremya Novostey that the deputies of the Petrograd Soviet asked the prosecutor's office to have employees of the supervisory authority appeal the republican law adopted by parliamentarians on the dissolution of the Petrograd Soviet. This is the only reasonable action, in their opinion, since city council deputies will be able to directly protest the law only after it comes into force. This will happen on November 25 - ten days after it was signed by Sergei Katanandov. In addition, deputies of the Petrozavodsk City Council have already appealed to the Supreme Court of Russia with a supervisory appeal against the decision of the Supreme Court of Karelia, which gave the head of Karelia legal grounds to take the initiative to dissolve the city council.
After the pogroms on ethnic grounds in Kondopoga , the unsuccessful search for Sergei Katanandov by the President of Russia, announced on Vladimir Putin’s “direct line” with the people, and the rather scandalous elections to the legislative assembly of the republic on October 8, Mr. Katanandov’s rating in the region did not increase. And the new election campaign in the capital is unlikely to improve the situation. “Today the composition of the City Council, in general, although not completely controlled by the governor’s team, provides an opportunity to manipulate itself, and in March it will certainly change not for the better for the party in power,” Mr. Tsygankov believes.
According to Mr. Kynev, the governor “has no good scenarios left, only bad and terrible ones”: “Even in United Russia, he is supported by the current senator from Karelia, Andrei Nelidov.” By the way, Mr. Nelidov, vice-speaker of the parliament of the Leningrad region, in 2000 the head of the White Sea-Onega Shipping Company, curator of the northwestern direction of United Russia, is called one of the potential contenders for the place of Sergei Katanandov. In the region itself there are practically no promoted candidates; among the governor’s competitors, only the mayor of Petrozavodsk, United Russia member Viktor Maslyakov, is named.
Anatoly Tsygankov doubts the governor’s imminent resignation, although he agrees with the popularity of potential candidates for his place. At the same time, he believes that lawsuits initiated by deputies can delay the start of the election campaign for the City Council. And this will further weaken the governor’s position.