In Chelyabinsk they decided to abolish the two-stage system for forming the City Duma

The City Duma of Chelyabinsk on Tuesday sent to the regional legislative assembly an initiative to abolish the two-tier system of forming the municipal parliament. Now the Duma is composed of district deputies – seven from each of the seven district councils. In 2014, Chelyabinsk was one of three regional capitals that switched to an experimental model. After two convocations, the reform was considered unsuccessful: instead of bringing deputies closer to voters, the authorities received duplication of powers and a delay in the budget process.

On September 26, deputies of the Chelyabinsk City Duma unanimously decided to submit to the regional legislative assembly a bill to deprive Chelyabinsk of the status of an urban district with intra-city division and return it to the status of an ordinary urban district. In fact, we are talking about the liquidation of urban districts as independent municipalities and the abolition of their deputy councils.

As the Chairman of the City Duma Andrei Shmidt said, after the document is approved, the districts will be abolished within six months, the powers of their administrations and heads will be terminated from October 1, 2024, and the powers of the deputies – from the moment of the first meeting of the City Duma of the new convocation, which will be elected next September.

Let us recall that the possibility of switching to a two-tier system of local self-government (LSG) in large cities appeared in 2014 on the initiative of President Vladimir Putin, who proposed “bringing local authorities closer to citizens.” The idea was implemented in the form of a new type of municipality – an urban district with intra-city division. Each district of such a district has its own representative body, to which deputies are directly elected. And the city duma is formed from their number in equal proportions.

Chelyabinsk became the first administrative center to switch to a two-tier model. In 2014, seven district councils appeared in the city, six of which elected 25 deputies, and another – 20. Thus, the total number of municipal deputies increased from 39 people in the previous parliament to 170. In the city duma itself from each district Seven representatives are elected (49 in total).

However, this model was not widely used. In 2015, only Samara joined the reform, where nine district councils with a total of 284 people were formed under a mixed system (41 city duma deputies instead of 35, later their number was reduced to 210 and 37, respectively), and Makhachkala (three district councils, 79 deputies instead of 45). In most subjects of the Russian Federation, the authorities abandoned the reform.

Doubts about the effectiveness of the two-tier system arose following the results of the first “reformed” convocation of the Chelyabinsk City Duma. Back in 2019, Governor Alexei Teksler stated that it had not achieved the goal of “bringing power closer to the people,” but agreed to give the reform another chance and try to “unleash its potential.” Otherwise, he promised to return to direct elections of the City Duma in 2024.

In June of this year, a group of deputies from United Russia took the initiative to return to the previous system, since the experiment “did not achieve the planned goals” – to distribute the load between intra-city districts and the city, as well as to more clearly delineate powers and financial support. According to United Russia members, the lack of their own powers among district councils leads to “duplication and fragmentation of city powers,” and the provision of interbudgetary transfers to the budgets of intracity districts leads to “delaying the process of budget execution.”

On July 12, public hearings were held, the majority of participants supported the abolition of the reform. Chelyabinsk Vice-Mayor for Legal Affairs Nadezhda Rylskaya said that the division of city power has led to a more complex bureaucratic system, increased administrative barriers for the population and increased costs. According to her data, the annual volume of spending on the maintenance of local self-government bodies increased by 240 million rubles.

Political scientist Alexey Shirinkin considers the disadvantages of the two-tier system obvious: these are “low-functional, not very resourceful district councils that do not have serious powers.” Also, due to the delegation system, there is “alienation between voters and the city duma,” the expert adds: “Among the advantages, first of all, is the low threshold for entry into district councils, which does not require either the collection of signatures or large amounts of money. It led to oppositionists winning in a number of constituencies.”

It is interesting that the new version of the law on local self-government, which was submitted to the State Duma at the end of 2021, involves the abolition of city districts with intra-city division and a two-tier system for the formation of municipal parliaments. However, so far the document has only passed the first reading and the timing of its adoption remains unknown. Let us add that in Samara and Makhachkala the issue of abolishing the two-tier system on their own initiative was not raised.

Yulia Garipova, Chelyabinsk; Andrey Prah