Direct elections for the mayor of Ulan-Ude have been canceled in Buryatia

The People’s Khural (parliament) of Buryatia canceled the direct elections of the mayor of Ulan-Ude, replacing them with the decision of the competition commission, TASS reports. The law was adopted in the final reading.

54 deputies voted for the abolition of direct elections, six voted against, and one abstained. Some United Russians were not present at the session, but they “delegated” their votes to their colleagues, notes “Sibirsky Express”. The bill was submitted to the People’s Khural by the head of Buryatia, Aleksey Tsydenov. The Parliament of Buryatia was supposed to consider the bill back in February 2024, but it was later removed from the agenda.

“In the same Soviet Union, the first secretaries of city councils were not elected, only deputies were elected. In the 1990s, the western electoral system was introduced. Today we see where western values ​​are going,” said the head of the governor’s administration, Aldar Gulgenov. Ego is quoted by Sibir.Realii.

The mayor of Ulan-Ude will be elected by a competitive commission, part of which will consist of city council members, and part of which will be appointed by the regional governor. Aldar Gulgenov stated that “it is more important for people, regardless of who is in charge, that the city should develop and life should be more comfortable.”

A member of United Russia, Mikhail Gergenov, said that canceling the elections would help the current head of Ulan-Ude, Ihor Shutenkov, to keep his post. The former candidate for the post of mayor, representing the CPRF in the State Duma, Vyacheslav Markhaev, after the cancellation of direct elections, said that Shutenkov was elected “thanks to the administrative resource.” “Mass rallies of people dissatisfied with the results of the elections only confirmed his questionable legitimacy. It is possible to remove this shameful gap by removing the people from voting. It is not possible to convince people without a whip and a gingerbread man to vote for the worst head of the region and the mayor of the capital,” Markhaev wrote.

• The election of the mayor of Ulan-Ude was already canceled in 2011 and returned in 2015. In 2019, Igor Shutenkov, the candidate from United Russia, won the mayoral elections. His opponent, candidate from the CPRF, Vyacheslav Markhaev, lost by a margin of 16.4 thousand votes: 54.1 thousand against 37.7. After that, spontaneous actions took place in the city, the participants of which accused “United Russia” of mass falsifications.
• Now in Siberia and the Far East, only the residents of Khabarovsk, Yakutsk, Abakan, and Anadyr directly elect their heads of power. Direct elections were canceled in other regional centers.