Press Release, 18.11.2019

Yaroslav Shcherbakov, Chairman of the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko, called on the leadership of the Chelyabinsk City Duma to allow all interested residents to come to the meeting when Mayor of Chelyabinsk should be elected, as well as provide an opportunity for everyone to ask a question to the mayoral candidates.

Yaroslav Shcherbakov emphasised that the administration deprives residents of Chelyabinsk of almost all opportunities to influence local self-government and express their opinion on this issue.

“In connection with the legislative initiative initiated by us on the return of direct mayoral elections, I am primarily interested in the issue: is Natalya Petrovna Kotova, the main candidate for the post of head of Chelyabinsk, publicly commit to that, if a decision is made to return universal, equal, direct mayoral election is taken, she will resign without waiting for the end of her term of office,” said the leader of the Chelyabinsk Yabloko.

The meeting of the Chelyabinsk City Duma on mayoral elections will be held on 19 November at 11:00. Regulations of the City Duma provide for the possibility of the presence of citizens at the meeting.

According to the opinion poll, the majority – 68% of the city residents – supported the direct election of the head of the city.

The Mayor of Chelyabinsk is not elected in direct elections, but by the City Duma from among the candidates represented by the competition commission based on the results of the competition. At the same time, the competition commission is formed half of the deputies of the City Duma, who were also not directly elected by the residents, and half of the persons proposed by the Governor, who, as the highest official of the regional government, does not have the right to influence local self-government bodies. Almost all members of the competition commission were closely connected with the United Russia party. As a result of this procedure, on February 26, 2019, Vladimir Elistratov, member of the United Russia party and the former deputy head of the city, became the head of Chelyabinsk. But already on June 23, the city head wrote a letter of resignation, not waiting for a court decision on Yabloko’s suit to cancel the results of the competition, as a result of which he was elected Mayor. The Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko has prepared a bill on the return of direct elections of the Mayor of the capital of the region.