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International News Title: Mayors Could Lose Their Powers: Russia The State Duma Council on Thursday will discuss United Russia-drafted legislation that would allow governors to confiscate powers from mayors who manage their cities poorly. The amendments promise to provoke consternation among liberal politicians and Western leaders, both of whom have expressed concern that the Kremlin is rolling back democracy by eliminating gubernatorial elections and scrapping individual races for the State Duma, among other things. The latest measure, political analysts said, is a sign that the Kremlin wants to make sure that leaders from the municipal level on up will guarantee a good showing for United Russia in the Duma elections next year and a smooth handover of power to the person whom President Vladimir Putin picks as his successor in 2008. Under the amendments, mayors would lose most of their powers during a natural disaster, if their city's debt exceeds 30 percent of its income or if the city mismanages government subsidies, Vladimir Mokry, a co-author of the amendments, said by telephone Tuesday. The governor would gain the right to oversee key sectors of the city, including heating, gas, electricity, water and public transport, as well as the right to manage the building of highways and bridges and to determine the rules for using public land and building on it, said Mokry, who chairs the Duma's Local Administration Committee. "Regional powers should not only have the responsibility but also the right to intervene to solve the problems that trouble a city," Mokry said. He noted, as an example, that electricity had been cut to cities and towns that have overdue bills. "In this situation you have mayors saying that they don't have money and governors saying they don't have the power to intervene. We need to find a solution to this problem," he said. Mayors would still be elected by popular vote. Mokry insisted that the amendments were not a "political order" to guarantee the Kremlin's control of the country. "We are not building the power vertical or fulfilling someone's political will, we just want to force everyone to work in the interests of the people. We don't want to destroy democracy or the self-rule system in the country," he said. The amendments are officially an initiative of United Russia, but the party usually only acts under the Kremlin's orders. Duma deputies are currently discussing how long a governor should be allowed to keep a mayor's powers and the details about the circumstances under which the powers can be taken away, Mokry said. The amendments were submitted to the Duma on Friday and will be discussed by the agenda-setting Duma Council on Thursday. Regional legislatures will then have 30 days to examine the legislation and add further amendments. The Duma is expected to consider the legislation in a first reading in mid-May. Even though the amendments would not give governors the right to hire and fire mayors, political analysts said that they would pave the way for the de facto control of every leader in the country. "The Kremlin wants a situation even more maneuverable and predictable for the elections in 2007 and 2008. They want to be sure that they don't have any scandals before and during the elections," said Sergei Mikheyev, a senior analyst at the Center for Political Technologies. Under the Constitution, mayors can be dismissed by courts. But with the new amendments, analysts said, the Kremlin would be able to control the mayors through the governors, without any change to the Constitution. Governors are now effectively appointed by the president, a change Putin ushered in as a way to strengthen the state after the 2004 Beslan school attack. Russia faced international criticism for that change, and the Kremlin appears keen to avoid a similar confrontation ahead of the 2007 and 2008 votes. Yury Korgunyuk, an analyst with Indem, a think tank, called the latest amendments a step back to the Soviet Union, when everybody was somebody else's subordinate. "Everyone has to have a boss breathing down his neck, starting from the governors, who are under the Kremlin control, to the mayors, who will be subordinated to the governors, and ending with the street cleaners," Korgunyuk said. "The Kremlin is so paranoid about losing its power that wants to have control of every single person, just in case," he said.
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