Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

222 Elena Denezhkina and Adrian Campbelleach could deliver success for United Russia in federal elections. Rossel andChernetsky still manoeuvred against each other in the Oblast Duma and CityDuma, 71 although each now had a clear majority in their respective dumas.Much more surprisingly, from 2004 Chernetsky and Rossel began toappear in public, apparently on friendly terms. Cynics held that this becameespecially noticeable in the run-up to elections, where now both were backingUnited Russia. 72 There were, however, also major practical benefits forthe city and region in their new partnership – projects such as the airportand several large territorial development projects have been completed orlaunched as a result of investor confidence increasing due to the end of openhostilities and start of genuine collaboration between city and oblast.There was a brief return of anti-mayor activism in early 2007 (analogousmoves were being seen to be made against city mayors elsewhere in Russia),with attempts to remove Chernetsky from the future election (due March2008) by legal means. 73 With finance-related charges being drawn up againstboth Chernetsky and Tungusov predictions of Chernetsky’s downfall beganto appear once again, the implication being that large-scale business (presumablywith federal links) would move in. According to one report theposition was summed up by Kabanov, the head of the national anti-corruptioncommittee, in the following terms: ‘The posts of mayor or governor arenow economic posts and they cost a lot of money. There’s going to be a newdivision of property (in Russia) and your mayor’s “roof has got thin” as theysay in proto-criminal circles.’ 74In the end the Kremlin appears to have decided that Chernetsky, likeRossel, was a valuable asset or ally in the wider political context. In June,2007, Vladislav Surkov, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration,with overall responsibility for political parties and movements, began a seriesof individual meetings with regional heads, beginning with Eduard Rossel.With other once-powerful Yeltsin-era governors such as Prusak (Novgorod)and Titov (Samara) resigning 75 for (reportedly) not preventing conflictbetween ‘business groups’ on their territory and not delivering a sufficientlyhigh vote for United Russia in mayoral, regional duma or federal elections, 76one might have expected Rossel to be in danger, but the outcome of thediscussion was that Rossel would stay in post. Chernetsky was called to seeSurkov the following week. The result was confirmation that Chernetskywould be second on the regional United Russia list, after Rossel (this isindeed what subsequently occurred) and that the federal centre would supporthim as mayor in the March 2008 elections. 77 For his part, Rosselarranged for the Oblast Duma to reduce the number of rounds in themayoral election to one, which was reported as being a ‘present’ toChernetsky, although it would presumably be more in Chernetsky’s interestto keep two rounds as no known candidate would be likely to beat him onthe second round, whereas if there were a large number of candidates hemight not win an outright majority in one round. 78 In the event Chernetskywas endorsed by the vast majority of regional United Russia delegates and