The mayor of Tomsk is deprived of nationality – Newspaper Kommersant No. 196 (7397) of 10/21/2022

A group of deputies of the Legislative Duma of the Tomsk Region from United Russia (ER), headed by speaker Oksana Kozlovskaya, has prepared a bill to abolish direct elections of the mayor of the regional capital. Tomsk is one of the seven administrative centers where the mayor is still elected by the population, but United Russia members are confident that, for the sake of economy, elections can be replaced by a competitive procedure. The expert believes that the authorities have chosen a good time to cover up the “Siberian freemen”.

Amendments to the regional law on local self-government were submitted on October 20 at an extraordinary meeting of the regional Duma committee on legislation. They suggest the abolition of direct elections of the mayor of Tomsk and the transition to a competitive model – when the mayor is elected by the deputies of the City Duma, and the candidates are preliminarily selected by a special commission (formed in half by the City Duma and the governor). This model, which is now being used in most regional capitals, will make it possible to “strengthen the independence” of the city duma in relations with the mayor and his administration, as well as to reduce the cost of elections, the explanatory note says. The authors of the document do not expect “negative socio-economic consequences”.

The bill was introduced by nine United Russia members headed by speaker Oksana Kozlovskaya, her deputy Alexander Kupriyants and chairman of the committee on legislation Stepan Mikhailov. In total, 27 out of 42 regional deputies are in the United Russia faction.

True, the discussion of the document at a meeting of the profile committee has not yet taken place: Ms. Kozlovskaya herself proposed to remove this issue, since the city parliament had not yet had time to respond to the initiative. “We sent a letter to the City Council with a request to express their position on this issue. To date, we have not received a response from city deputies. Given that we have a rather limited time frame for considering this issue, we propose to meet again tomorrow,” she explained.

As Kommersant previously reported, since the end of July, Tomsk has officially been living without a mayor: the powers of ex-mayor Ivan Klein have been terminated after the conviction in a criminal case comes into force, and the date for the election of a new leader has not yet been set. By law, the City Duma must do this no later than November 10, but for several consecutive meetings, the deputies have not raised this issue. On October 17, members of the Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP) faction stated that the authorities were preparing to cancel direct elections, but United Russia did not comment on their plans at that time.

According to Stepan Mikhailov, co-author of the bill, the letter was sent to the city deputies on October 19, and the regional Duma expects to receive an answer to it by mid-Friday, when the committee will meet again. United Russia also told Kommersant that the abolition of direct mayoral elections is an initiative of specific deputies and no party decision has been made in this regard. The press service of the regional branch of United Russia failed to promptly clarify its position on this issue.

On Thursday, the Socialist-Revolutionaries tried to discuss this bill “from the voice” at a meeting of the city commission on regulations, but United Russia refused to put it on the agenda. “Competition is unacceptable, because 370,000 voters will be deprived of their constitutional right to vote and be elected,” Inga Pervushina, a City Duma deputy from the SRZP, told Kommersant. Vice-Speaker of the City Duma Andrei Petrov (KPRF) agrees with her: according to him, the Communist Party is unlikely to “support this decision.” The LDPR has not yet formulated its position.

In 2020, the Tomsk City Duma, at the initiative of United Russia, has already discussed the possibility of canceling direct elections. The Commission on Regulations and Legal Affairs then unanimously spoke out against it. On the evening of October 20, the head of the commission, Ilya Leontiev (ER), stated that he remained a supporter of direct elections, but, given the “difficult situation at the front, he considers election dances inappropriate.” “I consider this decision possible, but under one and categorical condition: if both the city duma and the regional duma take public obligations to return direct elections as soon as the special military operation ends,” the deputy wrote in Telegram.

According to political scientist Alexander Kynev, Tomsk has historically been one of the centers of the “Siberian freemen”, which is why the direct election of the mayor here lasted so long. Now there is a comfortable situation for the reform, which since the mid-2000s has affected almost all regional capitals, the expert believes: “The public is significantly demoralized by the general situation in the country, the systemic opposition is also limited in the room for maneuver, and there is actually no active subject of resistance to changes” .

Valery Lavsky, Novosibirsk; Andrew Ashes