Moscow City Duma

The Moscow City Duma is the representative legislative body of Moscow. The city of Moscow enjoys the status of a separate subject in the Russian Federation. That is why, unlike most cities of the Russian Federation, Moscow has its own legislative body similar to other subjects of the Russian Federation.

Like other regional parliaments, Moscow City Duma adopts regional laws and budget. At the same time, it is considered one of the most powerless parliaments in the whole system of regional legislatures in Russia. Moscow City Duma does not approve the mayor's report on budget implementation and does not have the right to dispose of state property and assets. Further, it has no authority to establish the system of executive bodies of the region and agree on candidates for deputy heads of the subject of the Russian Federation. There is no established procedure for deputy inquiry.

Elections to the Moscow City Duma are held under the system of relative majority in single-mandate constituencies. The entire administrative territory of Moscow is divided into 45 single-mandate districts. The candidate who received a relative majority of votes, in other words, more voters than their opponents, becomes a deputy.

The last elections to the Moscow City Duma took place in 2019. The majority of seats (25 seats) were won by candidates supported by the Moscow Mayor's office and the United Russia party. The remaining 20 seats were won by the opposition supported by Smart Voting. The CPRF won 13 seats, Yabloko 4 seats, and Just Russia 3 seats. Formally, the pro-government candidates ran as self-nominees as nomination from United Russia would have been perceived negatively by Moscow residents. However, after being elected they instantly created the United Russia faction in the Moscow City Duma.

During that election campaign, many independent opposition politicians (to name a few, Lyubov Sobol, Ilya Yashin and Ivan Zhdanov) were not allowed to participate in the elections because of allegedly incorrectly collected voter signatures, some of which were rejected for spurious reasons, resulting in denial of registration. The denial of registration to opposition politicians led to mass protests. In the 2019 Moscow City Duma campaign, the authorities tested e-voting for the first time.