Press Release, 29.04.2025

Photo: The emblem of the Electoral Commission of the Pskov Region

The Electoral Commission of the Pskov Region refused to register referendum initiative groups in Sebezhsky and Pushkinogorsky Districts considering that direct elections of the head of the municipality do not comply with regional legislation.

The Electoral Commission says that there cannot be referendums in principle on the issue of electing heads in the areas transformed into districts, because this issue has already been resolved by the regional law on local self-government. Citizens are asking for a local referendum to be held precisely in order to change the method of electing the heads in their municipalities.

According to Alexei Maksimov, a member of the Electoral Commission with the right to vote from Yabloko, the assertion that the laws of the Pskov Region prohibit putting the issue of determining the procedure for electing the head of a municipality to a referendum cancels the priority of federal legislation over the legislation of the Russian Federation subject and denies the referendum as the highest form of expression of the power of the people.

Alexei Maksimov voted against the resolutions refusing to register initiative groups. The representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation also voted against. The other members of the commission approved and supported the refusals.

According to the Federal Law “On General Principles of Organisation of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation”, the structure of local self-government bodies, including the procedure for electing the head, in the event of the creation of a newly formed municipality by transforming an existing one, is determined by the population in a local referendum. Thus, citizens were denied the right enshrined in federal law.

In addition, by virtue of the Federal Law “On the Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in a Referendum of Citizens of the Russian Federation”, the Electoral Commission of the Pskov Region has no powers to verify the compliance of questions submitted to a referendum with the law. This should be done by the legislative body of the subject or the representative body of the municipality. In the case of the Sebezhsky and Pushkinogorsky districts these are the district Assemblies of Deputies.

It should be noted that earlier the Electoral Commission of the Pskov Region refused to register the initiative groups from the Gdovsky and Ostrovsky districts.

Residents of the Gdovsky district are challenging the refusal and the regional law in court, which limits the maximum number of people in an initiative group to the wording “in the amount of 30 people”. The first hearing on the lawsuit of the residents of the Gdovsky district against the regional law will be held in the Pskov Regional Court on 29 April.