Putin critic quits as mayor over scrapping of elections

Yevgeny Roizman, the mayor of Russia’s fourth-largest city and a rare critic of the Kremlin in a senior region position, has quit to protest against a government-promoted law which scrapped mayoral elections. Lawmakers voted last month to abolish direct mayoral elections in Yekaterinburg, located more than 1,500km east of the capital, Moscow. Mayors will now […]

Yevgeny Roizman, the mayor of Russia’s fourth-largest city and a rare critic of the Kremlin in a senior region position, has quit to protest against a government-promoted law which scrapped mayoral elections.

Lawmakers voted last month to abolish direct mayoral elections in Yekaterinburg, located more than 1,500km east of the capital, Moscow. Mayors will now be elected by the legislature from a shortlist drawn up by a special commission.

“I don’t want [to] be part of this and I am resigning,” Roizman told lawmakers on Tuesday in the local legislature.