"United Russia" is taking away from people the very last scraps of local power they still had.
Just look at what Vorobyov is doing in the Moscow Region.
Three days after the president signed the law on local self-government, new rules for forming municipal authorities were introduced in the Moscow Region. Direct elections for a mayor with real powers were left in only one city — Reutov. According to a document published on the Moscow Regional Duma website, direct mayoral elections are being abolished in 22 cities: Balashikha, Lyubertsy, Kolomna, Odintsovo, Shchyolkovo, Pushkino, Ramenskoye, Klin, Yegoryevsk, Vidnoye, Solnechnogorsk, Protvino, Istra, Likino-Dulyovo, Dedovsk, Zaraysk, Kubinka, Khotkovo, Pushchino, Golitsyno, Peresvet, and Krasnozavodsk. In these cities, the heads will be elected by local deputies from among their own members. In another 11 cities, direct mayoral elections are formally being preserved, but the office of city head is being removed from the executive branch, thereby stripping those elected by the public of actual governing powers. These cities are Korolyov, Orekhovo-Zuyevo, Dolgoprudny, Voskresensk, Dubna, Stupino, Pavlovsky Posad, Ivanteyevka, Kashira, Kotelniki, and Lukhovitsy. There, mayors will have purely nominal authority. Real power will instead lie either with the heads of the districts that include these cities, or with the heads of administrations (city managers), who will be appointed by the governor of the Moscow Region. Only in one city does the law provide for direct election of the head while allowing that head to retain all the levers of power — Reutov. In addition, the law affects a huge number of municipalities that do not have city status, where direct elections of local heads are also being abolished. http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2014/05/29_a_6052985.shtml
The Moscow Region is the second most populous federal subject of Russia. Why the hell are these seven million people being stripped of the right to choose the mayor of the city they live in?
And who is taking away that right? Governor Vorobyov, whose only claim to distinction is being the pampered son of General Vorobyov — Shoigu’s (former Russian defense minister) closest friend and next-door neighbor at their dachas.
He became governor because Shoigu “handed down” the post to him when he left for the Defense Ministry.
And now this spoiled heir is announcing to everyone that he is taking away the right to elect mayors by direct vote.
Residents of, for example, Balashikha, with a population of 235,000, are being officially treated as too dim and too lowly to choose for themselves the mayor who will handle Balashikha’s local affairs.
Why? The right answer is given by Nikolai Kuznetsov, a deputy from Stupino in the Moscow Region:
"...if you rank all 75 cities in the region by population, the top of the list was wiped out, while the bottom — well, they can go on electing to their heart’s content." At the second stage, the politician believes, they selected the municipalities with valuable assets. "And the most valuable asset in the Moscow Region is land. Consequently, the law abolishes direct elections of local heads even at the level of rural settlements in districts such as Istrinsky (where they found ‘United Russia dachas’), Odintsovsky, Pushkinsky, Solnechnogorsky, Stupinsky, and Shchyolkovsky. But, for example, direct elections are preserved in the settlements of Serebryano-Prudsky District: there’s nothing there to ‘develop,’ so they can afford to play at democracy.".
In other words, direct elections were abolished where the land is most expensive, and where the population is largest — which also means expensive land. That’s all there is to it. The Moscow Region’s governor-sonny, together with his party, "United Russia," will carve up the land.
And to justify it all, they’ll tell us about strengthening the vertical of power, improving governability, and defending us from Americans greedily reaching for the treasures of dear old Balashikha.