Following Novosibirsk, they propose to return direct elections of the mayor in Tomsk
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More and more Siberian deputies initiate attempts to return direct elections of mayors. Following the city council of Novosibirsk, where a referendum on this issue was launched on Monday (see “Kommersant” of June 6), with a similar initiative was made by the City Duma of Tomsk. At the session on Tuesday, the municipalities turned to their regional colleagues with a proposal to restore the direct voting procedure. True, the chances of winning back the situation are small, because the national elections were canceled only six months ago, and by the same regional parliament.
On June 6, the City Duma of Tomsk considered a draft appeal to the region’s parliament with a proposal to restore direct elections of the mayor of the regional center.
The document was prepared by independent MP Igor Lyutaev (Clean Tomsk group), who believes that this step will contribute to the “democratization of society.” “The procedure for electing the head by popular vote proved to be an effective mechanism that operated from 1996 to 2022,” the appeal says.
Recall that in October last year, a group of United Russia led by the speaker of the regional parliament Oksana Kozlovskaya proposed to abolish the direct election of the mayor, replacing them with the competitive model familiar to most Russian municipalities. They motivated their initiative by increasing the efficiency of local authorities and reducing the cost of voting. Despite the protests of some city deputies, the regional parliament controlled by United Russia supported this initiative.
However, it was not easy to choose a mayor by competition. In April, two candidates were submitted for consideration by the City Duma – Acting Mayor Mikhail Ratner (he does not have a party card, but he regularly participates in United Russia events) and Maxim Luchchev, deputy of the regional parliament from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. To win, one of them needed to score at least 2/3 of the votes.
But since no political force in the city parliament has a majority (“United Russia” and the parliamentary opposition each control 11 out of 37 seats, another 15 are representatives of small parties and independent deputies), the matter simply did not come to a vote: at the last moment, both candidates withdrew their nominations.
The next competition is scheduled for August 22.
The idea of Igor Lyutaev to appeal to his regional colleagues with a proposal to restore direct elections was discussed in essence at a meeting of the commission on regulations and legal issues on May 24th. Vasily Eremin, a representative of Yabloko, spoke out in support of it, to which the chairman of the United Russia Commission, Ilya Leontiev, noted that the return to the popular vote, if it takes place, “will be in any case after the competition.” Nine deputies voted for consideration of the document, with one against and five abstentions. And at the session of the City Duma on June 6, this issue did not cause any discussion at all: the appeal was silently supported by 16 deputies, 2 more abstained. It is not known who voted and how, since the list of participants in the session is not listed on the website of the representative body.
The answer of the regional parliament will actually depend on the position of the ER faction, which includes 27 out of 42 deputies. The regional branch of the party in power on Tuesday chose not to comment on the appeal of the City Duma.
“Maybe, but he doesn’t want to,” Tomsk political scientist Sergei Shpagin answered Kommersant’s question about whether the regional duma could change its mind.
According to political scientist Konstantin Kalachev, the initiative is surprising in that the proposal to return direct mayoral elections comes from a significant part of the City Duma, and not individual politicians, “apparently, the demand is so high that the deputies decided to raise their popularity in such a way.” The expert believes that the Legislative Assembly could support the idea of municipalities and ensure the controllability of the elections. “It may be even easier than holding a competition, which city deputies perceive as an occasion for bargaining. But it is much more likely that there will again be a competition in which the parties will be able to settle on some compromise figure, ”he believes.
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