Press Release, 3.12.2015

Petrozavodsk Mayor Galina Shirshina who was elected on the post with the support of the YABLOKO party, won the RBC (RosBusinessConsulting) award in the nomination the State Person. The prize was awarded in Moscow today.

The finalists of the award in this category were oppositional figures Galina Shirshina and Yevgeny Roizman, Mayor of Yekaterinburg. Other nominees in the category were President of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov, Governor of the Kaluga Region Anatoly Artamonov, Chair of the Auditing Chamber of the Russian Federation Tatyana Golikova, head of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina and head of the Federal Tax Service Mikhail Mishustin.

Galina Shirshina was elected in 2013 with support from the Karelian branch of YABLOKO. She won with 41.9 per cent of the vote, her competitor then Mayor of Petrozavodsk Nikolai Levin from the ruling United Russia party received 28.9 per cent of the vote.

Shirshina demonstrated good results on the post, however, had to confront resistance to her anti-corruption action. Consequently, the pro-Governor’s majority of deputies in the Petrozavodsk City Council labelled her work as “unsatisfactory” in 2014. Her team had to face reprisals: criminal cases were filed against her colleagues, members of YABLOKO. On 2 November, Petrozavodsk City Court of the Republic of Karelia sentenced Eugenia Sukhorukova, Deputy Mayor, to three years of imprisonment with a probation period of one year. YABLOKO considers this sentence a revenge of Governor Khudilainen to Shirshina and her team for their consistent anti-corruption and socially oriented policies in the republic.