Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg

Russian Empire Saint Petersburg's city duma was established in 1786 as part of Catherine II's reforms on local government. In 1798, Paul I abolished the city duma and replaced it with the Ratusha (Rathaus) until the city duma was restored in 1802. The city duma was again abolished in 1918 with its functions devolved to the Petrograd Soviet. In 2012, following the passage of a new federal law, which restored direct elections of the heads of federal subjects, the city charter was again amended. Convocations The first three convocations were formed by a single-member district plurality voting system with at least 20% participation required (except for the 1994 elections with their changing participation threshold), two-round for the first and second convocations and single-round for the third one. On March 11, 2007, the fourth elections were held using a party-list proportional representation system with a 7-percent election threshold and no required threshold of participation for the first time according to the new city law accepted by the third convocation of the assembly in 2006 and new federal legislation. • 1st convocation: March 20–21/October 30/November 20, 1994 • 2nd convocation: December 6/December 20, 1998 • 3rd convocation: December 8, 2002 • 4th convocation: March 11, 2007 • 5th convocation: December 4, 2011 • 6th convocation: September 18, 2016 • 7th convocation: September 2021 – September 2026 ==Composition ==

The Assembly is a permanent body, and the supreme and only governing body in Saint Petersburg. It consists of fifty seats and is elected for a five-year term. Half of this number run in single-mandate constituencies, while the other half are in a single electoral district, with winners elected in proportion to the number of votes cast. The candidates are nominated by electoral associations. Structure and governor The highest executive body of state power in Saint Petersburg is the government of Saint Petersburg, headed by the Governor of Saint Petersburg, who is the region's highest-ranking official. The Governor is elected for five years by Russian citizens who live in Saint Petersburg permanently. , the incumbent governor is Alexander Beglov, who was re-elected for a second term of office in 2024. ==Past compositions==

2011 2016 2021 ;Controversy While non-systemic opposition was largely eliminated from the elections, those candidates (mostly of systemic opposition) who were allowed to participate were targeted by various semi-legal intimidation or confusion techniques. The one includes "doppelganger candidates", where a person of similar look and surname was put on the same ballot in order to confuse voters. A remarkable case of Boris Vishnevskiy, a candidate of the Yabloko party, who run in the №2 Saint Petersburg circuit with two nearly indistinguishable doppelgängers alongside was widely reported. Both have changed their legal names to "Boris Vishnevsky" shortly before the elections, and returned to their original names shortly after it was finished. == Speakers ==