Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

210 Elena Denezhkina and Adrian CampbellStrakhov had attempted to build support among local authorities by passinga new regional law that would allow elections for municipal heads. Inthe event this was ruled out by a court decision, but the passing of theFederal Law on the General Principles of Local Self-Government in theRussian Federation meant that elections for municipal heads would takeplace in any case.‘Transformation of the Urals’ versus ‘Our Home, Our City’Immediately after the victory in the gubernatorial election it was agreed thatRossel’s team would support Bakov as an official Transformation of theUrals candidate for mayor against Chernetsky at the first election on 17December 1995. Chernetsky, for his part, formed his own party ‘Our Home,Our City’, echoing the federal Our Home is Russia’ party. Chernetsky’sparty colleague, Vladimir Tungusov, ubiquitously referred to as the ‘greycardinal’, had supported Strakhov directly through the party. He had consideredsupporting Strakhov, but had not done so actively as it had soonbecome clear to all that the latter’s campaign was heading for a heavydefeat 12 and that supporting it would only reduce Chernetsky’s own chancesin the mayoral election a few months later.The Bakov camp considered Chernetsky a worthy if somewhat traditionalopponent but expected Rossel to ‘put him in his place’. 13 In the wake ofRossel’s victory, Chernetsky appeared isolated – he was seen as having noneed for the city council, seeing them as a dilution of mayoral authority,although his high level of professional ability (not universal among mayorsin the early 1990s) meant that many councillors still supported him. 14Nonetheless the poor relations between mayor and at least some councillorsopened up a line of attack that would be exploited by Rossel’s supporters inthis and future elections. When it came to the election on 17 December 1995,Chernetsky beat off Bakov’s challenge, the latter winning only 16 per cent onthe second round. Bakov showed himself once again to be a gifted politicalcampaigner, but not a credible replacement for Chernetsky, who had built upa base of genuine popularity in the city, projecting an image of dependableprofessionalism, confirmed by his winning the all-Russian competition‘Russian Mayor-95’. 15 The basis for Chernetsky’s success in this and subsequentelections was his ability to combine a liberal/social democrat outlookwith the style and experience of a late Soviet-era industrial magnate,and a detailed understanding of how the city’s infrastructure actuallyworked. This ensured that he outlived both the first generation of wellmeaningprogressive mayors who were out-manoeuvred by vested interestsand the old-guard industrial managers who were unable to adapt to electoralpolitics and the need to interact with the public.If, in the early years of democratization (1990–3), conflict had been on thehorizontal level – between executive and representative bodies, from thispoint the main axis of conflict was vertical, between city and region. From