Alexander Sherin, expelled from the Liberal Democratic Party, became a contender for a mandate in the Ryazan City Duma on the party list

The Ryazan City Duma at an extraordinary meeting on March 1 unanimously satisfied the application of Dmitry Pankin, a member of the LDPR faction in the Ryazan City Duma, to resign from him as a deputy and vice-speaker in connection with a court conviction that has entered into legal force. On August 29, 2022, the Sovetsky District Court of Ryazan sentenced him to three years of suspended imprisonment in a criminal case of fraud committed using his official position, as well as on a large scale (part 3 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). It was about the theft of the so-called deputy compensations – funds allocated for assistants to the deputy and current expenses for work. On February 22, the guilty verdict entered into force after approval by the Ryazan Regional Court.

Pankin, despite not pleading guilty, submitted to the Ryazan City Duma an application for resignation in connection with the guilty verdict that came into force. At a meeting of the Duma, the head of the LDPR faction, Dmitry Volodin, said that “this is a forced measure.” He supported Pankin, calling him “one of the best deputies of the current convocation.” Words of support addressed to the deputy passing the mandate were also heard from other deputies, including representatives of United Russia. In particular, United Russia Oleg Shishov expressed the hope that “in future convocations of the Ryazan City Duma, his [Панкина] a bright personality will participate as a deputy”. The coordinator of the Ryazan branch of the LDPR, Maxim Mustafin, on his page in Vkontakte, also expressed support for his fellow party member and expressed confidence in his innocence. Pankin’s statement on resignation was supported unanimously by the deputies with 35 votes in favor.

Pankin, 32, was elected to the Ryazan City Duma on September 9, 2018. He was number three on the list of the Liberal Democratic Party, headed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky (the late ex-leader traditionally led party members in regional and municipal campaigns). Second on the list at that time was Alexander Sherin, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defense, who did not get into the State Duma then, and in 2022 was expelled from the Liberal Democratic Party after a conflict with the party leadership. It is he, in accordance with the regional law “On the Election of Deputies of the Representative Body of the Municipal Formation in the Ryazan Region”, that should get a mandate in the Ryazan City Duma, which was vacated after Pankin’s resignation, political lawyer Oleg Zakharov told Vedomosti.

“The vacant mandate of the list is transferred by default to the candidate from the territorial group where the departed deputy was, in this case, the general part of the list,” he explained. The party has 14 days to make an appropriate decision, if it does not, then the election commission will give the vacant mandate to Sherin. At the same time, according to Zakharov, there were incidents in practice when the parties, when transferring a vacant mandate, deviated from the rules prescribed by law in their decision, transferring the mandate to another territorial group. “Then the decision remains with the electoral commission: to transfer it incorrectly, but in the way the party decided, or to ignore the decision of the party and transfer the mandate according to the law. In the latter case, the situation is very likely to turn into a judicial channel,” Zakharov noted.

Mustafin did not answer calls from Vedomosti.

From 2000 to 2017, Sherin headed the Ryazan branch of the Liberal Democratic Party, twice (in 2005 and 2010) he was elected to the regional Duma. In 2014, he received a vacant mandate as a State Duma deputy, and in 2016 he was elected to a new convocation on the LDPR list from the Ryazan and Tambov regions. In 2021, Sherin failed to be re-elected, but he received a vacant mandate as a deputy of the Tambov City Duma. Two months later, the politician resigned. Sherin was expelled from the party in June 2022 for violating party discipline – the politician unsuccessfully tried to be nominated for the post of chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party, which, after the death of Zhirinovsky, went to the head of the Duma committee on international affairs, Leonid Slutsky. Attempts to compete with Slutsky were accompanied by non-standard moves.

Shortly after the announcement of partial mobilization in Russia in September 2022, a graduate of the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School named after General of the Army V.F. Margelov, Major Sherin signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense and went to the zone of a special military operation. On February 28, local media published a video message from the ex-deputy of the State Duma from the front line, in which he thanked the people of Ryazan for their humanitarian assistance. It was not possible to get through to Sherin in the special operation zone.