On May 22, 2018, the mayor of Yekaterinburg, Yevgeny Roizman, at a meeting of the city duma announced his early resignation from his post. This was done in response to the adoption by the deputies of amendments to the city charter, canceling direct elections of the mayor in Yekaterinburg.
In the comments, Roizman pointed out that the abolition of direct elections for the mayor of the city is a deception of residents and a betrayal of the interests of Yekaterinburg. Eugene does not want to participate in this, so he relieves himself of the duties of the mayor ahead of schedule.
At that meeting, Roizman refused to put on the agenda the issue of amending the charter of Yekaterinburg and canceling the mayoral elections. Then the deputies of the City Duma transferred the right to do this to the Deputy Chairman of the Duma Viktor Testov. Yevgeny Roizman responded by closing the meeting and announcing his resignation.
Thus, the former mayor of Yekaterinburg believes that he did everything in his power to prevent the cancellation of the vote. Although these amendments were still made at the next meeting of the City Duma deputies, already without Yevgeny Roizman.
It is worth noting that at present in Yekaterinburg there is a situation in which two bosses are simultaneously acting in the city. The first is the mayor of the city, Yevgeny Roizman, who was elected in the general elections in 2013 and at the same time is the chairman of the city duma. The second is Alexander Jacob, the appointed head of the city administration. At the same time, the city economy is completely managed by Alexander Yakob, and Yevgeny Roizman does not have the authority to do so.
Starting from April 3, the deputies of the Legislative Assembly of the Sverdlovsk Region decided to rectify this situation. As measures, it was proposed to merge the two leadership positions into one and abolish the direct election of the mayor. Thus, the head of the city will now be appointed by the deputies of the city duma. The Legislative Assembly believes that the appointed mayor will better and faster solve city problems, and about 150 million rubles can be saved by canceling the elections.
Roizman considered this decision aimed at preventing him from participating in the next mayoral elections, to be held in September 2018. Proposed alternative amendments to maintain the popular vote procedure. However, his version was not accepted.
The residents of Yekaterinburg also disagree with this decision. The day before the adoption of the law on the abolition of elections in the capital of the Urals, a rally was held, which was attended by from 1,700 to 2,000 people, mostly young people. It was also attended by Yevgeny Roizman himself, former State Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov, associate of Alexei Navalny, Leonid Volkov. I wanted to join, but at the last moment Ksenia Sobchak, a former presidential candidate, changed her mind.
After the rally on May 11, 2018, public hearings were held in Yekaterinburg about the planned amendments to the city's charter and the cancellation of the mayoral elections. 1,314 people came to the hearing. Unexpectedly, 1,037 of them spoke out in favor of canceling the elections. Yevgeny Roizman himself considers these hearings to be false, since not a single announcement was made on them in advance, but they drove “their own”, using the administrative resource.
The Kremlin administration is trying not to interfere with the current situation. At the same time, they do not see anything illegal in the cancellation of the election of the mayor of Yekaterinburg.
Evgeny Roizman's further plans are still uncertain. Knowing his reputation, he has already received a number of proposals for further cooperation, but the ex-mayor says nothing about them. He believes that he will continue to develop the Yekaterinburg hospice and work on the Roizman Foundation.
Experts predict Roizman's future career in federal opposition politics. He receives many proposals from various political parties, but the former mayor is a cautious person and has not decided anything yet.
After Roizman leaves the post of mayor, his duties will be performed by the current deputy chairman of the city council, Viktor Testov. It is believed that he is a person from the team of the Yekaterinburg administration, and after the cancellation of the popular vote, he will be appointed mayor of the capital of the Urals.
