vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #161 / Special reports / Reading article...

Vladivostok’s Leninsky district court struck down Mayor Victor Cherepkov’s efforts to delay City Duma and mayoral elections this month. The decision significantly limits the mayor’s wide-ranging powers.

But the Mayor’s Office press center dismissed the decision, saying Cherepkov was confident the elections would go on when he said they would — in October.

Cherepkov had claimed that the city’s division into five municipal zones made Duma elections impossible, and argued that the city must first decide the fate of three inactive City Duma members elected in 1996.

But the Leninsky district court came down with three verdicts against Cherepkov in the case, brought by the Krai Electoral Commission. The court said that Cherepkov’s position as mayor does not give him power to delay the vote, and that his fears about the duma were not enough to make elections invalid.

The court also ruled that mayoral elections could not be held in October, as Cherepkov had decreed, because his term expires in July. The decision was a sharp rebuke to the mayor.