New regions establish the procedure for electing heads of municipalities

The People’s Council of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) adopted amendments to the regional law on local self-government, according to which a unified procedure for electing heads of municipalities is provided for “by the representative body of the municipality from among the candidates presented by the competition commission.” The head of the Committee on Legislation, State Building, Local Self-Government, Regulatory Issues and Deputy Ethics, Alexander Krierenko, spoke about this at the meeting.

The first head of the municipality has already been elected in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). On September 25, deputies of the local council of Makeyevka, the second largest city in the region, on the proposal of the head of the republic Denis Pushilin, elected Vladislav Klyucharov as mayor, who has held this post since February 2022. Such elections are the first in the history of the DPR. Since the declaration of independence in 2014, the heads of city and district administrations have been appointed by the head of the republic, but there has been no local government.

The previous municipal elections were held in 2010, when the Donetsk region was part of Ukraine. After the formation of the then unrecognized republic, its parliament adopted a law according to which the first local elections could be held by decision of the head of the DPR. After the DPR joined Russia, the regional parliament adopted a law on local self-government on August 14, 2023, according to which the head of the municipality is elected by the local council of deputies from candidates nominated by the competition commission based on the results of the competition. The final and transitional provisions of the same law state that the heads of newly formed municipalities are elected in accordance with Part 5 of Art. 11 of the federal constitutional law on the republic’s accession to the Russian Federation, i.e., on the proposal of the head of the DPR.

As a representative of the press service of the People’s Council of the DPR explained to Vedomosti, this special procedure applies to the municipalities of the region, since all of them were created following the elections on September 10. “In the future, the election of heads of municipalities will take place according to the general procedure provided for in Art. 35 of the DPR Law “On Local Self-Government in the DPR” – candidates for the post of head of the municipality are presented by a competition commission based on the results of the competition,” explained the regional parliament.

In the spring of 2023, 12 city and 18 municipal districts were created in the republic. Some of them are located on territory controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, so local elections were held in the councils of 11 city and 10 municipal districts. According to the Central Election Commission, approximately 2,500 candidates from five parliamentary parties ran in them. The majority of seats in municipal councils went to United Russia. From 75.49 to 80.52% of voters voted for United Russia in local elections in the region.

In the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, laws on the election of heads of municipalities have not yet been adopted. When creating local government bodies in the Kherson region, they are guided by the federal law “On the general principles of organizing local self-government in the Russian Federation” and the federal constitutional law “On the admission of the Kherson region into the Russian Federation and the formation of a new subject within the Russian Federation – the Kherson region,” the chairman of the regional regional government told Vedomosti. Election Commission Marina Zakharova. In accordance with the law, the heads of newly formed municipalities are elected by the representative bodies of such municipalities from among candidates nominated by the governor of the Kherson region and head the local administration.

A similar norm is provided for in the Zaporozhye region. However, the Berdyansk District Council of Deputies at its second meeting on September 26 approved the procedure for electing the head of the municipal district, a representative of the press service of the local administration said. It is noted that this “is an important step in the process of transition from military-civil administration to municipal district administration.” It was not specified how exactly the head would be elected.

The procedure for electing heads of municipalities in all new regions will be the same, says political scientist Rostislav Turovsky. “It is also the most common in the country as a whole. We are talking about a standard model of a city manager, which allows you to control the selection of heads of administration by the head of the region through competition commissions. This will strengthen the vertical, but will also increase the responsibility of regional heads for the functioning of municipal authorities,” he said.