Mayor of Yekaterinburg, which is Russia's fourth-largest city, has reportedly resigned to protest a government-promoted law which scrapped mayoral elections.
Yekaterinburg Mayor Yevgeny Roizman announced his resignation on May 22 as the city's legislature, the City Duma, which he also chairs, was about to incorporate the amendment scrapping the mayoral vote. Mayors will now be elected by the legislature instead.
The City Duma in April backed the bill including the amendment despite widespread protests against the move. It was drafted by the pro-government faction.
Elected in 2013 for five years, Roizman is one of the few leading Russian regional officials who openly criticizes President Vladimir Putin and supports his archrival Alexei Navalny, according to the Associated Press.
He had reportedly also called for a boycott of the March presidential vote, saying the election was not free or fair.
Roizman was born in Sverdlovsk to a Jewish father and Russian mother; his father was a school teacher of Russian Language and Literature, mother was an artist. Roizman claims to have left home at the age of 14, to have traveled across the country and later to have started work at Uralmash as a welder. He later graduated from Ural State University as a Historian/Archivist.
Roizman was sentenced to a two-year prison term in 1981 on charges of theft and fraud. During the Yekaterinburg 2013 mayoral race he was accused of entertaining strong ties with local mafia bosses, including members of the Uralmash gang.
Roizman was a State Duma deputy between 2003-2007, and attempted to run for parliament from the A Just Russia party in 2007, but was taken off the election list after a conflict with A Just Russia leaders. Until 2015, he was a political ally of Prokhorov and was supported by the Civil Platform party.
