Buryatia abandoned direct elections for the mayor of Ulan-Ude – Kommersant

Deputies of the People’s Khural (Parliament) of Buryatia at an extraordinary session on March 28 adopted amendments to the republican law “On the Organization of Local Self-Government”, according to which direct elections of the mayor of the city of Ulan-Ude are canceled and a procedure is introduced for filling this position on a competitive basis. The progress of the session and the adoption of the bill was broadcast online. The amendment was supported by 54 deputies, 6 were against, and 1 more abstained.

“Currently, direct elections in regional capitals remain only in four constituent entities of Russia. These include Abakan, Anadyr, Khabarovsk and Yakutsk. The concept of the bill corresponds to the provisions of federal legislation. In addition, canceling the elections will save 16 million rubles this year,” Aldar Gulgenov, head of the administration of the head of Buryatia, told deputies.

Direct elections for the mayor of Ulan-Ude were to take place in the fall of 2024 on a single voting day. Now he will be elected by deputies of the Ulan-Ude City Council from among the candidates presented by the commission based on the results of the competition. In Buryatia, out of 21 municipal districts and 2 urban districts – Ulan-Ude and Severobaikalsk – 17 use the system of electing the head by competition. With the transition to such a model in Ulan-Ude, direct elections of mayors remain in Kabansky, Bichursky, Selenginsky, Kyakhtinsky and Okinsky districts.

As reported previously, the initiative was introduced to Khural in January of this year by the head of Buryatia, Alexey Tsydenov. Among other reasons for the reform, according to a Kommersant source, the initiators viewed it as “an opportunity to neutralize the buildup of protest sentiments on the part of external hostile forces.” In 2019, the struggle for the post of mayor between the protege of the head of Buryatia, Igor Shutenkov, and the head of the republican committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Senator Vyacheslav Markhaev, from which Mr. Shutenkov emerged victorious (52.5% of the votes against 36.6%), ended in rallies and even clashes with law enforcement officers. The issue of canceling the elections was supposed to be considered by Khural deputies back in February, but at the last moment it was postponed until after the Russian presidential elections.

About what kind of “compensation” the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is seeking for the cancellation of mayoral elections in Ulan-Ude is in the Kommersant material “The Communist Party of the Russian Federation will fight for what is leaving”.

Vlad Nikiforov, Irkutsk