Statement by the YABLOKO party, 10.04.2014

Draft Federal Law № 469827-6 “On Amending the Federal Law “On General Principles of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation” has been submitted to the State Duma. The draft law was developed by the working group of the All-Russia Local-Self-Governance Council and the Congress of Municipalities in implementation of President Vladimir Putin’s order on another local self-governance reform.

The text of the bill demonstrates a genuine political goal of the announced reform: final integration of the executive local self-government bodies into the state power vertical and further blocking of citizens’ influence on decision-making through elected local governments.

The authorities do not hide the fact that their main goal is elimination of local self-governance in large cities and regional capitals. However, the bill reduces the status of local government in absolutely all municipalities.

Thus, the bill envisages a radical change of the principles of formation of local self-governments in urban districts, urban settlements and municipal areas. Direct elections of heads and heads of administrations will be abolished in all municipalities, except for rural areas.

Local self-government executive bodies in urban districts and municipalities will be headed “city managers” virtually appointed by governors, as tender commissions for selection of candidates for the post of “City Manager” will consist by 50 per cent of governor’s representatives.

The authorities will go beyond cancellation of mayoral elections: direct elections of deputies to the representative bodies will be abolished in the municipalities and urban districts where intra-urban division will be introduced.

Representative bodies of such city and municipal districts will consist of deputies delegated there by inner city districts and settlements that are respectively integrated into urban districts or municipalities. This can be done in each of the present 518 Russian city districts. The procedure of formation of local self-governments will be unchanged only for rural settlements. However, they also lose some of their competence in the part of most important for the public and most cost consuming local issues, such as maintenance of roads and construction, planning of territories, organization of utility services, etc. The proxies of the newly formed intra-municipal (urban areas) will be equated with the reduced powers of rural settlements.

Such a system of local self-government contradicts to the Constitution of Russia, the European Charter of Local Self-Government and has nothing to do with the real needs of the country.

The YABLOKO party strongly opposes the adoption of the bill that does not meet the needs of social development and democratisation of the Russian political system and converts local self-government into a legal and political fiction.

Sergei Mitrokhin,

YABLOKO Chairman