Murmansk Mayor Andrey Sysoev announced his intention to resign

Murmansk Mayor Andrei Sysoev intends to resign. About this he announced at the briefing.

“I made a decision to devote myself entirely to the implementation of projects important for the city in the near future,” Sysoev said, recalling that he had been in charge of the city administration for 9 years.

According to him, now the federal government pays special attention to the development of the Arctic, and this requires the involvement of forces and funds. Sysoev noted that he will leave the post of the head of the municipal formation, but will remain a deputy of the City Council.

The city council will elect a new mayor at an extraordinary meeting on 23 August.

“The change of the mayor will hardly affect the upcoming elections,” said the head of the Political Expert Group, Konstantin Kalachev. “The question is, is there a request for an update in the city? Sometimes the departure of the old boss and the emergence of new popular and publicly approved candidates can, on the contrary, raise the rating of the authorities. But it is clear that the system of power in the city does not change with the change of the mayor, and for elections the risks from the point of view of organizing and mobilizing administrative resources are insignificant. Moreover, this story can even be played up as a story of renewal, purification, reboot of new social optimism. It all depends on what the governor thinks about it and who will be proposed as the new mayor.

I would not rule out that the resignation is associated with a corruption scandal. Usually, people do not leave such posts a month before the elections, unless there are some force majeure circumstances. As a rule, these are corruption stories, so here you can just draw a connection, ”the expert is sure.

Recall that in the spring it became known that Sysoev did not report an undeclared residence permit and real estate abroad of the ex-wife, whom he divorced in 2016. At the same time, the governor of the Murmansk region, Andrei Chibis, instructed the anti-corruption department, together with the Ministry of Justice and the government apparatus, as well as law enforcement agencies, to submit proposals on measures of responsibility for the head of Murmansk and analyze the possibility of his being in his position.