"Rain": Putin will cancel the elections of mayors and city thoughts

In the message to the Federal Assembly on Thursday, Vladimir Putin will announce the radical reform of the power system in cities. As the Kremlin source told the Rain television channel, the elections of mayors will be canceled, and city legislative bodies are liquidated. According to the source, the heads of regions will be appointed mayors. At the same time, citizens will still be able to choose heads of districts and district deputies.

The source noted that the topic of local self -government will become the main in the presidential speech. “The main innovation is a change in the vertical in place to avoid conflicts, as in Astrakhan or Yaroslavl,” the interlocutor of Rain explained. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not confirm and did not refute this information.

On December 9, Vedomosti wrote that United Russia is preparing proposals for the new procedure for nominating candidates to mayor of cities and heads of districts from the party.

The current constitution does not regulate the procedure for the election of the heads of regions and mayors. Direct elections of governors were held in the regions of Russia from 1996 to 2004. The federal law returning direct elections in truncated form (with municipal filters) was adopted in 2012.

In many Russian cities, there is a position of the appointed city manager, which was introduced in 2006. In some cases, the introduction of this position was accompanied by the abolition of the mayor's post.