Moscow Times
March 18, 2009
Governors May Get To Fire Mayors
By Anna Malpas / The Moscow Times
On the heels of United Russia losses in two mayoral elections, the State Duma this week will consider in a first reading a bill giving governors extra powers to dismiss mayors, who are still directly elected by constituents.
The bill, submitted by President Dmitry Medvedev, would further tighten federal control over the regions, a move Medvedev says is necessary to rein in rogue officials but which critics say is a Kremlin attempt to stamp out any spark of unpredictability in the country's polity.
Under the bill, a governor could propose that a mayor in his region be dismissed for failure to fulfill his duties. Grounds for dismissal include serious budget deficits or misuse of budget funds.
The proposal would then need to be passed by two-thirds of the city legislature to sack the mayor. United Russia dominates the local legislatures in most cities and towns across the country.
Currently, only a court can order a mayor's removal.
While United Russia is led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and has a constitutional majority in the Duma, the party is far from infallible at the local level. Over the weekend, independent mayoral candidates topped United Russia opponents in the mayoral races in Murmansk and Smolensk.
And next month's mayoral race in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, host of the 2014 Winter Olympics, has the makings of a volatile political scrap. Two high-profile independent candidates billionaire businessman Alexander Lebedev and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov have announced plans to run.
Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi, wanted in Britain for the 2006 poisoning murder of Alexander Litvinenko, is also mulling a bid for the post. The Sochi mayor will have a say in the distribution of funds for the Olympics, for which the federal government has earmarked billions of dollars.
The bill, to be considered Friday in the Duma, would make it harder for independent candidates to hold onto mayoral posts and would strengthen United Russia's control over local politics.
In a meeting with regional legislators in Tula last week, Medvedev said the bill would allow deputies to "create a normal, effective vertical of power," according to comments posted on the Kremlin's web site.
"We need to provide this opportunity, but at the same time not allow it to become a reason for endless infighting in the city legislatures," Medvedev said.
Recently, Medvedev has referred to the need to remove "criminal elements" from positions of power in the provinces.
"Unfortunately, there are cases where representatives of the first criminal wave have become [city] deputies, people who in the 1990s made a large or small fortune and are moving into power quite energetically," Medvedev said Sunday in an interview with Channel One television.
Deputies with a criminal past have all but disappeared from federal and regional legislatures but are still found at the city level, Medvedev said, adding that he would give the issue his "utmost attention."
Vyacheslav Timchenko, head of the Duma's committee on local government, said the bill was not meant to be "a whip to scare people" but rather "a mechanism that lists clear obligations for mayors."
Public Chamber member Vyacheslav Glazychev, however, said the only purpose of the bill is to "bring in harsh subjection of mayors to governors" who are controlled by the Kremlin. "There is no other meaning to this bill," Glazychev said.
The Kremlin scrapped gubernatorial elections in 2005, replacing it with a system in which governors are essentially appointed by the president.
This latest legislation is merely "a continuation of the so-called 'power vertical,'" said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Mayors are frequently at odds with governors, Petrov noted. "Mayors enjoy popular support," he said, while governors "are not very popular and in some cases are not even known in their regions."
The bill is targeted at the 83 mayors of regional capitals, who are the biggest taxpayers and economic players, Petrov said. "If the mayor of a small municipality gets money from the government, it's no problem to control him," he said.
About 80 mayors last year were facing criminal prosecution, on the run from police or had voluntarily left their posts under pressure, Glazychev said, citing information gathered by his colleagues in the Public Chamber.