Moscow’s Plan to Form Municipal Districts Out of Several Population Points Uniting Officials and People in Opposition

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 7 – The anger that changes in borders between federal subjects can generate has been on public view over the last year in Ingushetia, but another plan to redraw the administrative map of Russia at a lower level in the name of efficiency is sparking opposition that in many cases is uniting officials and the population against Moscow.

            In May, a new Russian law went into force that allowed for the creation of single municipal districts out of several population points, especially those with relatively few people, to save money on the costs of local governments and make it easier for more senior officials to push their programs rapidly and relatively cheaply.

            In many parts of the Russian Federation, this program has been implemented without any difficulties; but in others, Kira Dyuryagina reports in Kommersant, local officials and the local population have opposed such plans and sometimes have joined hands and garnered support of more senior officials (kommersant.ru/doc/4186742?from=main_11).

            Some of these alliances have succeeded in blocking any change, but in all too many, the journalist says, plans to disband local governments and create larger units are being done in an arbitrary way or even to punish the political opponents of regional officials or the Kremlin by eliminating their jobs.

            In Tatarstan, the republic head sided with those who oppose municipal amalgamation because he said that the more local the government, the better the population can ensure that its views drive policy. Elsewhere, as in Chelyabinsk, regional officials clearly sought to destroy those local population points controlled by opposition parties.

            The Russian government’s program is slated to be implemented over the next several years.  It has proceeded furthest in Moscow oblast where “instead of 378 municipal formations have appeared 64 urban districts with a single administration, head and council of deputies, leaving many officials without jobs and local people with less access.

            Another source of protest against such amalgamations comes from wealthier territories who are being forcibly combined with poorer ones, often those which have lost population. Representatives of the former are turning to the courts to slow if not block the combination of their territories.

            While this amalgamation and optimization program has not attracted much attention so far, it may prove more important as a political phenomenon in that it unites officials and the population. That makes it more dangerous than divides in which almost all officials are on one side and the population on the other.

            The line between the two has here broken down, and that could presage real problems ahead for the Kremlin.