OREANDA-NEWS. January 15, 2009. Viktor Maslyakov, who has been city mayor of Petrozavodsk since 1992, has resigned from his post. The long-time city leader says he can not accept the city assembly’s decision to reschedule the next city mayor’s elections.

Originally, the next city mayor’s elections were scheduled for October 2010. However, the city assembly late last fall decided to reschedule the elections to October 2009. That was not in line with the wish of Mr. Maslyakov, who subsequently announced his resignation.

New local elections will now be due in March this year, the city administration reports in a press release.

A regional analyst says however that Mr. Masyakov is likely to try retain the post in the new elections. As a matter of fact, he might actually have wanted the quick elections. That will make it harder for regional Governor Sergey Katanandov to find good candidates for the post, Anatoly Tsigankov from the Centre of Political and Social Studies says to newspaper Kommersant.

Viktor Maslyakov has long not been able to find a good tone with regional Governor Katanandov.

New elections in crisis-times might however be risky business. As noted by Natalya Zubarevich from the Independent Institute of Social Policy to Kommersant, election results in periods with unstable economy might bring election results which are not in line with the wishes of the governor, nor the city mayor.

Petrozavodsk is the capital of the Republic of Karelia. The city has a population of about 260,000.