In Novosibirsk, the court confirmed the mayor’s violation of the city charter

The court in Novosibirsk ruled that Mayor Anatoly Lokot violated the city charter by refusing to discuss a referendum on the return of direct elections. This was reported by the independent deputy of the city council, Anton Kartavin, who is seeking the return of the mayoral elections. Now the mayor is obliged to reconsider this issue and schedule a personal meeting, added Kartavyn.

In March, the deputy sent the mayor a written request for a meeting to discuss the referendum on the return of direct mayoral elections, but Lokot refused the meeting through his deputy, reports Sibir.Realii.

Novosibirsk activists have been pushing for a referendum on the return of direct mayoral elections for several months. The official decision to cancel them was made in April. 38 deputies voted for the cancellation of the elections, five voted against, four more did not vote.

According to the amendments previously adopted at the regional level, the heads of Novosibirsk and Koltsov are elected with the help of councils of deputies from among the candidates proposed by the competition commission (one half of which is formed by the governor-united Russia Andrey Travnikov).

Novosibirsk is the last city with a millionaire, except for Moscow and St. Petersburg, where direct elections of heads have been abolished. The last election of the mayor of Novosibirsk was held in 2019. On them, Anatoly Lokot (from the CPRF) was re-elected for a new term, gaining 50.25% of the votes. The second place was taken by the head of Navalny’s local headquarters, entrepreneur Sergey Boyko — 18.56%. In the fall of 2021, Boyko left the country due to the threat of criminal prosecution.

Now, in the Siberian and Far Eastern federal districts, only residents of Khabarovsk, Yakutsk, Abakan, Anadyr and Ulan-Ude can directly elect heads of power. Anton Kartavyn is a member of the Novosibirsk city council since 2020, who won the elections as part of the coalition of independent candidates “Novosibirsk 2020”. In May 2022, searches were conducted in Kartavina in connection with the “Fund fighting corruption” case regarding extremist activities.