Authorities canceled the elections of mayors of Kemerovo and Novokuznetsk

The Governor of Kuzbass Sergey Tsivillev signed the law on the cancellation of the elections of mayors of Kemerovo and Novokuznetsk. The cities of one of the latter in Russia retained direct elections, although their result was predictable, experts say.

The Kuzbass regional council approved the cancellation of mayors of the two largest cities in the region at the January session. The bill on the cancellation of the elections was prepared by the deputy from United Russia Alexei Zelinin and the vice speaker of the regional council Yuri Skvortsov (Patriots of Russia), Taiga.info found out.

The decision was not actually discussed at a meeting of the regional parliament. The amendment, which leaves residents without the right to vote, was adopted by a single package along with a number of technical changes to the laws on elections.

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In 2014, in all areas and cities of Kuzbass, except Kemerovo and Novokuznetsk, the elections of mayors were canceled. They are appointed by local deputies (City Councils and district councils) on the proposal of the competitive commission. Half of the commission is appointed by the governor. The January amendments of the regional council deprived the southern and northern capital of the region of special status.

The head of the region, Sergei Tsivilev, signed the law on February 4. He has already been published and entered into force. The document will begin to be applied after the end of the current mayors of Kemerovo and Novokuznetsk.

“For the ordinary Kuzbass, according to my sensations, little will change,” said Igor Ukrainsev, a former deputy of the Kemerovo Regional Council, running for governors. - All elections in Kuzbass to the executive branch are held according to one scenario: this is an excessively conservative thing, the entire administrative and financial resource works for one pre -agreed candidate. It would be really disappointing if competitive elections were canceled, but they were never competitive and in the near future they would hardly have become. ”

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Ukrainians, heading the Siberian Politics Foundation, hopes that the decision can at least lead to an increase in the role of city councils. For example, Kemerov’s parliament for a long time was a “decorative organ”, which “has never decided anything.” But the law will not affect the current mayors, because the heads of Kemerovo and Novokuznetsk Ilya Seredyuk and Sergey Kuznetsov “are built into the vertical for a long time”

According to the analyst Taiga.info, Alexei Mazur, direct elections in the mayors of the two cities were preserved only because the former Governor of Kuzbass Aman Tuleyev was sure that he could hold his candidates.

“The cancellation of the elections says that Sergei Tsivilev is not so sure of the election outcome as Tuleyev,” Mazur believes. “His uncertainty can be additionally fed by the fact that the factor of Tuleyev himself was neutralized during the election of the governor and the Legislative Assembly, but who knows how he would affect the directors of mayors.”

We add that one of the formal authors of the election bill - deputy Alexei Zelenin - was a deputy of Tuleyev for a long time. He headed the administration apparatus and was dismissed after a fire in the Kemerovo shopping center “Winter Cherry”, when 60 people died.

After the cancellation of the mayor’s elections in Kuzbass, a direct vote in Siberia was preserved only in Khakassia, Ulan-Ude, Tomsk, Novosibirsk and Koltsovo Science.

Yaroslav Vlasov