1997 Moscow City Duma election

The 1997 Moscow City Duma election was held December 14 of that year to the Moscow City Duma, the city's unicameral parliament (city council).

Participating in the election were 28 associations and four electoral blocs.^[1]

Background

In 1995, the deputies refused to schedule new elections and instead extended their term for a further two years. This provoked a two-year court case that ended in the summer of 1997 with a ruling that the Duma had acted illegally in extending its powers.

Campaign

The "Nikolai Gonchar" bloc was the only bloc that adopted a platform critical of the way Mayor Yury Luzhkov ran the city. Among posters were "In this city, there should be a separation of powers, but the present Moscow City Duma is nothing but a pie with no filling".^[2] The bloc, which was set up by the "Our City" movement, the Moscow Association of Councils of Territorial and Social Self-Government, and the Moscow branch of the Democratic Party of Russia, included 33 candidates. The "My Moscow" bloc campaign stressed that "Muscovites support the Mayor's actions" and focused on solving the city's ecological and transportation problems.