Almost two decades ago, President Vladimir Putin ended his first term by canceling the gubernatorial elections for years, which would only return at the hands of Dimitri Medvedev. Now the recentralization of Russia is primed with prominent city councils, which became a successful laboratory for a dissidence that now has to be extinguished. The latest victim is Novosibirsk, the third largest city in the country. The authorities have canceled direct mayoral elections. The elections have also just been abolished in Koltsovo, a city located about 25 kilometers from Novosibirsk. Moscow and St. Petersburg are now the only major cities where the electorate directly elects the mayor.
The neighbors of Kemerovo and Novokuznetsk, two important cities in Siberia, have not been able to elect the mayor since 2019 either. "Local politicians do not have much power, but the central government does not like us to become strong in important cities," explains Radislav Poluikov, district councilor in St. Petersburg: his municipal board has just been dissolved. His benchmate for years, Nikita Yurefiev, denounces that the regime wants to "destroy the remains of democracy." He points out that with the new amendments to the constitution approved in 2020, the municipal government becomes part of a single state administration, without separation of powers, "with traits of military authoritarianism, they want to control everything from top to bottom."
From now on, the regional deputies will select the mayor of the Siberian capital from a group of candidates chosen by a committee that will be partially composed of people suggested by the governor. Something similar was done in 2018 in another regional capital, Yekaterinburg. There the elections were canceled in order to remove the most important opposition mayor in the country. The maverick Evgeny Roizman held the position since 2013. Now he is not only in the opposition 'by decree' but also faces five years in prison for criticizing the war in Ukraine.
Moscow's long hand reaches into the occupied territories in Ukraine: regional leaders were handpicked and now Russification prevails. Putin signed a decree on Friday that offers people living in these areas a way to obtain Russian citizenship. But the law has its reverse: those who refuse or who do not legalize their situation face deportation. The decree affects the four Ukrainian regions that Russia claims as its own and partially controls: Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia.
Russia has also just approved life imprisonment for the crime of high treason, which is punishable more harshly than murder.
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