The mayor is supported by a plebiscite – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

No sooner had direct elections of the mayor been officially canceled in Novosibirsk than an initiative for their return had already appeared. Non-factional city council deputy Anton Kartavin said on Wednesday that he intends to submit the question of the method of electing municipal leaders to the regional referendum. To launch the procedure for appointing a plebiscite, he needs to collect more than 21,000 signatures from residents of the Novosibirsk region, which has never been done in the region in recent years.

Deputy Anton Kartavin announced the preparation of an application for holding a referendum on the restoration of direct elections of heads of municipalities in the Novosibirsk Region at a session of the Novosibirsk City Council on March 22. “In the near future, the initiative group will send all the necessary papers to the election commission of the region. After a huge number of formal procedures, we will be able to officially start campaigning for a referendum,” he explained.

Direct elections of the heads of most municipalities in the region were canceled back in 2015, the only exceptions were Novosibirsk and the science city of Koltsovo. But in February 2023, the legislative assembly of the region, on the initiative of United Russia, abolished direct elections and there. Now the city council of Novosibirsk must make appropriate changes to the charter of the city, on April 11, public hearings on this issue will be held.

For the adoption of amendments, the votes of 34 out of 50 deputies (two-thirds of the payroll of the City Council) are required. There are only 28 people in the EP faction. They can get the missing votes from independent parliamentarians (15 people), some of whom have already spoken out in support of the reform. The remaining seven deputies are members of the faction of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which opposes it. However, the vote will be largely of a technical nature: if the city council does not bring the charter in line with the regional law, the court will force it to do so.

At a meeting on Wednesday, the City Council of Novosibirsk did not discuss the advisability of holding a referendum on the return of direct elections. The inclusion of this issue on the agenda was supported by only six deputies present.

According to the regional law, in order to hold a plebiscite, a group of 20 people must apply to the regional election commission with a petition and a package of documents.

If the commission does not have any claims, it will send them to the Legislative Assembly and, with the consent of the deputies, register an initiative group, which must collect signatures of 1% of the region’s voters in support of the referendum. 2.17 million voters are registered in the region, that is, the initiative group needs to collect 21.7 thousand autographs.

According to Olga Blago, the chairman of the regional electoral committee, over the past ten years the commission has received six applications for holding a plebiscite, but the initiators have never been able to register the group due to “non-compliance with the requirements for the submitted documents.” So, in December 2013, the referendum on the abolition of payment for capital repairs failed, in April and June 2015 – on the allocation of free land plots to the residents of the region, in August 2016 – on the construction of a toll bridge. And in May 2015 and September 2016, the PARNAS party twice unsuccessfully tried to launch a referendum on direct mayoral elections.

“As a person who has already gone through this not so long ago, I responsibly declare to you that this is an impossible story,” non-factional deputy Igor Ukraintsev said at the session.

In 2021, he was part of a group that unsuccessfully tried to initiate the recall of Mayor Anatoly Lokot (KPRF).

In February 2023, the Novosibirsk branches of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, A Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP) and New People supported the preservation of direct mayoral elections. The Social Revolutionaries did not comment on the initiative of Anton Kartavin to Kommersant. The vice-speaker of the City Council from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Anton Tyrtyshny during the session said that “it is wrong to deprive the townspeople of the right to choose.” The press service of the regional committee of the Communist Party called this the position of the party, without specifying the attitude to the idea of ​​a referendum.

The skepticism of Igor Ukraintsev is largely shared by the head of the New People faction in the Legislative Assembly, Daria Karaseva. “It is very important to keep the direct elections of the mayor of Novosibirsk and Koltsovo. At the same time, the scenario in which it will come to a regional referendum seems unlikely. It is quite possible to assemble an initiative group and get 22,000 signatures from Novosibirsk residents, but then formally rather complicated procedures follow. It is practically impossible to overcome them and bring the matter to a referendum,” she told Kommersant.

According to Ms. Karaseva, the referendum “from below” could not be launched in any region of Russia.

“As for the referendum on the election of mayors, so far not a single organizational group has been able to go through all the stages. As a rule, the majority is cut off at the stage of coordinating issues, ”confirmed political strategist Konstantin Lukin.

Valery Lavsky, Novosibirsk