July 2017: a meeting between Yevgeny Kuivashev and President Vladimir Putin. Source: Kremlin.ru.At the beginning of this week, several thousand residents of Ekaterinburg attended a demonstration against plans to cancel elections for the position of city mayor. People held placards bearing democratic slogans. Prominent city residents spoke from the stage, including the current mayor of Ekaterinburg, Yevgeny Roizman, whose term will end in September 2018.
In 2013, Roizman, an independent politician who had gained popularity for his anti-drug campaign, unexpectedly won the city’s mayoral elections, beating a candidate from United Russia. He could have put himself forward for a new term, but Sverdlovsk regional governor Yevgeny Kuivashev decided to revoke direct elections for the city’s mayor via the regional legislature. Instead of city residents, the mayor will now be chosen by a special commission formed by deputies from the city council and officials from the regional administration. It was against this legislation that thousands of people came out in protest, some of whom shouted “Roizman is our mayor!” and “The governor should resign!”
However, deputies in the regional legislature didn’t hear these calls. The day after, on 3 April, 42 out of 46 attending deputies voted in favour of cancelling the elections. Even a few opposition deputies (in Russia, “opposition” is a figurative concept) didn’t risk going against the will of the governor. It might seem paradoxical, but the decision about how the city administration is formed in the 1.5 million-strong Ekaterinburg isn’t taken by the city council, but the regional legislature, where a significant number of deputies represent very different municipalities.
