Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 21 – Over the last 15
years, the Putin regime has moved step by step to eliminate the democratic
basis of local government and thereby reduce that part of the state to little
more than a transmission belt for the center, Emil Markvart says, a drive
intended to solidify Moscow’s control of the country and undermine popular
faith in democracy as such.
The specialist on local government
at the Russian Academy of Economics and State Service details the step-by-step
process in which Moscow stripped local governments of their democratic
legitimacy and power to make decisions, leaving them little more than
extensions of the Kremlin (rosbalt.ru/moscow/2019/05/17/1781658.html).
The first move came in 2003 when
city managers who introduced alongside the mayors chose by the municipal
assemblies. Then, officials from the regions were added to the commissions that
selected candidates to head the municipalities. And overtime, the elections
became more pro forma and less meaningful.
With changes in 2008, Markvart
continues, it became obvious to the population that local heads, “even elected
by the population in direct elections” were without real power and could be
removed at will by those above them. But
as bad as that was for local autonomy and democracy, worse was to come in 2014.
In that year, the Duma passed a
measure which drove the final nail in the coffin of local
self-administration. It gave the
regional authorities new leverage over municipal heads by increasing the share
of regional officials in the selection boards from a third to a half, a step
that almost always guaranteed that the region, not the people, controlled who
would be mayor.
City managers became the real locus
of power and they were no longer subject to any vote, even an advisory one. And
these changes were ratified in 2015 when the Russian Constitutional Court
declared that they were fully consistent with the country’s basic law rather
than a violation of its provisions.
No significant changes in laws regarding
this sector have occurred since, but “this was enough,” Markvart says. As a
result, he continues, at present, only 12 percent of the heads of districts (raiony) and 11 percent of city districts
(okrugs) are still elected. And of the 1800 districts now, there are
direct elections of any kind in only about 1,000.
“If in 2008, about 70 percent of
mayors were chosen by direct election, in 2014, that figure was already down to
34 percent; and in 2019, to only 14 percent,” other Moscow experts say. And power has passed to appointed city
managers almost everywhere – with popular faith in democracy ebbing as a
result.
Markvart says that the center has
achieved its goal of establishing complete control over the mayors; but in the
process, Moscow “is losing a most important political institution” and
increasing the distance between the government at all levels and the population,
with officials looking up not down and the population having little confidence
in local ones.
One municipal deputy, Pavel Yarilin of the
Aeroport district, says that what Moscow has done is to go in exactly the opposite
direction to the trajectories of other countries which are handing ever more
authority to local officials who are best placed to make decisions about many
issues.
According to Yarilin, “local self-administration
in Russia is like a fifth wheel on the cart of statehood.” Like so many other
things the Russian Constitution calls for, local governance is only “an
imitation” of what it is supposed to be.
Markvart agrees: local governance in Russia now is “a completely decorative
institution.”
Its role is minimal, and everyone
understands this because “they are not idiots,” the Russian scholar says. But
the consequences are immense: Russia is losing “the culture of elections” and a
generation is rising which consists of “people for whom these democratic values
are losing their significance.”
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