The Moscow City Duma has appointed the election of the mayor of Moscow on September 10

The capital’s parliament at the last plenary session of this session scheduled the election of the mayor of Moscow for September 10. Despite the fact that there was only one vote against the draft resolution, before the vote, opposition deputies asked quite a few questions about the future of the vote. The speaker of the Moscow City Duma Alexei Shaposhnikov described most of them as “questions for the sake of questions”, but he nevertheless gave answers – for example, he admitted that the future elections would be fair, but not competitive, because Sergei Sobyanin could not have competitors. However, Mr. Shaposhnikov hinted to representatives of the opposition that they could help candidates pass the municipal filter.

Aleksey Shaposhnikov, Speaker of the Moscow Parliament (United Russia), acted as a speaker on the issue of scheduling the election of the mayor of Moscow. He recalled that, according to the law, the approval of the resolution on the appointment of the mayor’s elections will launch the election campaign. After his speech, the rest of the deputies could ask their questions, and the opposition, as expected, had them. True, most of them, according to Mr. Shaposhnikov, were “questions for the sake of questions, and not for the sake of answers.” Some he dismissed immediately, arguing that they are not related to the text of the resolution. For example, he did not respond to Just Russia MP Mikhail Timonov, who asked whether any election legitimizes the winner or only those held openly, honestly and under public control. But Mr. Shaposhnikov decided to answer a similar question of Yevgeny Stupin, who was recently expelled from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. The ex-communist asked the speaker if he considers the future mayoral elections in Moscow to be competitive.

“I consider the election of the mayor of Moscow open, honest, but not competitive, because Sergei Semenovich (Sobyanin.— “b”) there can be no competitors,” said Alexei Shaposhnikov.

The speaker’s answer caused a revival in the hall and even modest applause.

Elena Shuvalova, expelled from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, expressed concern about the possibility of opposition candidates passing the municipal filter in conditions when the absolute majority of mandates in district councils are occupied by representatives of United Russia. In Moscow, each candidate must collect at least 110 signatures from deputies of district councils. According to the results of the 2022 municipal elections in the capital, candidates from United Russia received 1,160 out of 1,417 mandates, another 134 seats in district councils were taken by nominees of the pro-government association My District, and the opposition and self-nominated candidates received a total of 123 mandates. Mrs. Shuvalova made more than one attempt to find out what Mr. Shaposhnikov thought about this, and on the third time he gave up. “United Russia” will not allow disruption of the elections in Moscow, he reassured Ms. Shuvalova and hinted that the municipal deputies of the ruling party “share” their signatures with opposition candidates.

“The fact that all political parties, except United Russia, lost the election campaign for municipal deputies in Moscow last year is a fact. United Russia won a resounding victory,” Alexei Shaposhnikov stressed.

Applause sounded again in the hall, but this time the speaker caught a note of sarcasm in them: “It is very nice when opponents applaud United Russia!” he reacted.

Pavel Tarasov, deputy head of the Communist Party faction in the Moscow City Duma, decided to continue the topic of the past elections and asked Alexei Shaposhnikov whether he really considers the campaign carried out using remote electronic voting to be “a triumph and his victory” (the communists oppose the DEG and seek its cancellation.— “b”) and in the conditions of “draconian” electoral legislation. The host of the plenary session, Deputy Chairman of the Moscow City Duma Stepan Orlov (ER) tried to intervene in the discussion and reminded that questions should only be asked on the topic, but Alexei Shaposhnikov decided to speak out. Since the question mentioned online voting, the speaker of the Moscow City Duma did not miss the opportunity to remind the audience about the advantages of this type of expression of will: “The DEG is one of the tools that will increase turnout, legitimize election results and make voting more convenient.”

At this block of deputy questions ended, and the participants of the plenary session moved on to speeches from the factions. Stepan Orlov, the leader of the United Russia faction, reminded his colleagues about the role of the individual in history: “We all studied Marxism and remember the productive forces and production relations. But no productive forces and production relations work without a personality, and we see how Moscow has changed over the past 12 years.” Yelena Nikolaeva, leader of the My Moscow parliamentary association loyal to United Russia, said that the mayor, who will be elected by Muscovites in September, should not reduce the activity and ambition of existing city programs, as well as cede the leadership positions of the capital. The head of the Communist Party faction, Nikolay Zubrilin, stressed that the future mayor should communicate more often with the deputies of the Moscow City Duma and discuss the adoption of the budget with them. The leader of A Just Russia, Magomet Yandiev, is sure that Moscow needs a leader who will continue to improve the “not fully effective” system of city government. The Yabloko faction refused to speak.

As a result, 36 deputies voted for the adoption of the resolution on the appointment of the election of the mayor of Moscow on September 10, 2023, only Evgeny Stupin was against, there were no abstentions. The election campaign for the election of the mayor of Moscow has started.

Elena Rozhkova