Chairman of the Tomsk City Duma Chingis Akataev resigned early

Chairman of the Tomsk City Duma Chingis Akataev (United Russia), who held this post since 2020, resigned early. He explained his decision by “nervous tension,” although he had previously publicly stated pressure from the regional authorities. The powers of the head of parliament are temporarily assigned to the vice-speaker of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Andrei Petrov. Neither United Russia nor the Communists have yet decided who will be nominated for the vacant position.

Chingis Akataev announced his desire to resign early at the session City Duma 5th of December. He did not comment in detail on the reason for this decision, noting only that “this is more personal.”

A little later in his Telegram channel Mr. Akataev added that “he did not write a statement at gunpoint, as some “in the know” are already saying.”

“I’ll emphasize again: this is my decision. Please treat him with respect and understanding. The last few months have been a lot of difficult work, a lot of difficult decisions that we have had to make. Let’s not lie, we didn’t always reach a consensus. Constant nervous tension and all these experiences do not go away without leaving a trace,” the United Russia member wrote.

It’s interesting that back on November 27, at the conference of the Tomsk city branch of United Russia, Chingis Akataev announced a completely different version of events. Then the speaker complained to fellow party members that he was allegedly being forced to resign from his post by one of the vice-governors of the Tomsk region, who accused the chairman of the City Duma of manipulating Mayor Dmitry Makhina and lobbying the interests of builders. According to Mr. Akataev, this conversation “shocked” him. He reminded his fellow party members how much he had done in the fight against Tomsk supporters of oppositionist Alexei Navalny, and to stormy applause he promised that he was not going to write a statement of his own free will.

True, a few days later the speaker changed his position and already on November 30 at a meeting of the presidium of the regional political council of the United Russia reported about the desire to leave a post. Members of the same party unanimously supported the aspirations of the City Duma chairman. The administration of the Tomsk region, in response to a request from Kommersant about Mr. Akataev’s statement about pressure on him, said that the election and dismissal of the speaker is within the exclusive competence of the city duma.

On Tuesday, none of the deputies objected to the resignation of Chingis Akatayev. The head of the United Russia faction, Maxim Reznikov, said that United Russia treats his decision “with great respect.”

As a result, 28 deputies voted for the resignation of the speaker, and 4 more abstained. The powers of the chairman were temporarily transferred to vice-speaker Andrei Petrov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation).

According to the City Duma regulations, a new chairman must be elected within a month. To win, the candidate will have to receive the support of more than half of the established number of deputies, that is, at least 19 votes.

Let us recall that Chingis Akataev headed the Tomsk City Duma after the election of its new convocation in 2020. United Russia’s main competitor at that time was Ksenia Fadeeva, a supporter of Alexei Navalny. In December 2021 her detained in the case of organizing an extremist community, and in August 2023 started court hearings. Another candidate for speaker in 2020 was the head of the LDPR faction, Yuri Voroshilin.

The regional branch of United Russia told Kommersant that United Russia has not yet discussed whom the party faction (it consists of 11 people) will nominate as a candidate for the post of chairman of the City Duma. In the Communist Party faction (eight people), a decision has not yet been made either, Andrei Petrov told Kommersant. According to deputy Alexander Qing-De-Shan, possible candidates for the “New People” faction (two people) have not yet been considered. And for the faction “A Just Russia – For Truth” (three people), the main thing in the figure of the speaker is “the result and further work so that it is built constructively,” noted its leader Konstantin Ushakov.

Liberal Democrat Yuri Voroshilin told Kommersant that he is again ready to compete for the post of speaker. “At the moment, it has been decided to nominate me as a candidate from the LDPR. I do not rule out that we will be asked to consider candidates from other parties. I am sure that the regional authorities will want to see a representative of United Russia in the speaker’s chair. How feasible this is in the current composition is an open question,” the leader of the LDPR faction (two deputies) told Kommersant.

Finally, the Yabloko faction (three deputies) proposed to nominate independent deputy Igor Lyutaev as chairman, its leader Vasily Eremin told Kommersant. Mr. Lyutaev’s assistant, Galina Sosnovskikh, told Kommersant that the “final decision” on who the independent deputies (four people) will support “has not yet been made.”

According to Tomsk political scientist Sergei Shpagin, one of the four United Russia members has the greatest chance of being elected: chairman of the social issues committee Alexei Balanovsky, head of the commission on regulations and legal issues Ilya Leontyev, member of the committees on urban planning, land use and architecture, as well as on the budget, economy and property of Sergei Panov and the leader of the United Russia faction Maxim Reznikov. All of them, except Mr. Balanovsky, are members of the presidium of the political council of the Tomsk “United Russia”. The next session of the City Duma is scheduled for December 22.

Valery Lavsky, Novosibirsk