Issues of electing heads of municipalities directly by the population (a direct election) or by the representative body (an indirect election) have acquired a special importance and urgency nowadays. Over 10 years of the municipal administration reform significant changes have taken place in legislation: municipalities passed new statutes and changed the ways of electing governance in their regions.
The author analyzed the current transformations of the kind in 40 municipalities of Murmansk region. Laws, regulations, statutes and other legal acts dealing with the order of electing heads of municipal administration were investigated. The analysis showed that all options of electing heads of municipalities provided by legislation do exist in Murmansk region at present.
The conclusion is: there is a shift of priorities in relation to the elections: direct elections are abandoned, and indirect elections are favored, with the mechanism of electing heads of administration by the representative body being introduced against the opinion of the residents and the Federal legislation on local self-government being often violated in most municipalities of the region. Thus, despite being legislated, local self-government in the Russian Federation as a form of democracy is so far difficult to speak about as a mature institution with effective performance. It is mainly due to the latest legislation directed at enhancing state control over local government legally and financially.