Press Release, 22.10.2020

On 21 October,  Oleg Rodin, Chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Yabloko, sent an appeal to the City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod with a demand to declare the competition for the post of Mayor of Nizhny Novgorod void.

The competition commission made a decision to conduct interviews with candidates via video-conferencing, as reported on the website of the City Duma.

This is contrary to clause 6.5. of the procedure for holding a competition, in accordance with which the “Competition is held openly and publicly”.

It also contradicts the principle of openness of information about the activities of state bodies and local self-government bodies and free access to such information, established by the Federal Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection”.

According to the procedure for holding a competition, if the meeting of the competition commission did not take place on the day of the competition, the City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod declares the competition for the selection of candidates for the position of the head of the city of Nizhny Novgorod invalid within a period of 30 days from the date of the competition.

Therefore, the Nizhny Novgorod regional branch of Yabloko demands the following:

1. Conduct a check of the above circumstances, recognise the actions (inaction), decisions of the competition commission on holding a competition for the selection of candidates for the position of the head of the city of Nizhny Novgorod unlawful.

2. Submit to the City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod a proposal to eliminate violations of the law.

It should be noted that the City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod had to choose the Mayor of the city from three candidates. The corresponding decision was made by the selection committee on 21 October.

Applications for the competition to select the head of Nizhny Novgorod were submitted by three candidates: acting head of Nizhny Novgorod Yuri Shalabayev and two City Duma deputies:  German Karachevsky, Director General of the Nizhny Grad company, and notary Kirill Lazorin.

On 21 October, the competition commission was supposed to choose at least two candidacies, that had to be presented to the deputies at a meeting of the City Duma on 28 October. But the commission decided to present all three candidacies to the deputies.