In Russia's North West, the struggle between Aleksandr Khudilainen, governor of Karelia, and Galina Shirshina, mayor of Petrozavodsk – the capital of Karelia – and Russia's last independent mayor, is heating up. Ahead of the State Duma elections due to take place next year, Khudilainen is making serious efforts to sideline Shirshina.
Moreover, with the region facing a poor economic situation following European Union sanctions, there is less money to throw at the population. And for governor Khudilainen that is a problem: after all, the Kremlin evaluates the work of regional chiefs not in terms of their corruption ratings nor infrastructure projects, but their election results.
Electoral manoeuvring
Though election results are, as a rule, falsified by public officials, the Petrozavodsk mayoral race of September 2013 may have provided grounds for resentment inside the Kremlin's walls.
