ABSTRACT
As was discussed in Chapter 4, the specifi c rights and powers of municipal bodies are laid down in municipal charters. As Kourliandskaya et al. note, on 1 September 2000 there were 12,261 municipalities registered in Russia, of which 11,691 had elected councils. In approximately 7,000 municipalities, the mayors were directly elected by the citizenry. In just over 3,600 municipalities, ‘the mayor combined the post of head of the local administration and chair of the local assembly’. In 4,519 municipalities, local heads were indirectly elected ‘from among local council members, including nominees proposed by the regional governors’, and fi nally, ‘in eighty-nine municipalities in fi ve regions, the head of the local government was hired by local councils on a contractual basis’.1
