MOSCOW: In Russia, where all governors and mayors are either Kremlin nominees or hail from Kremlin-friendly parties, Yevgeny Roizman cuts an odd figure.
The mayor of Yekaterinburg, Russia鈥檚 fourth-largest city with 1.4 million people, is the only top regional official to openly criticize President Vladimir Putin. He has also called for a boycott of Sunday鈥檚 presidential vote, a move advocated by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is banned from running.
Yet Roizman still epitomizes the helplessness of Russia鈥檚 opposition in the face of Putin鈥檚 well-oiled government machine.
Roizman is an outlier in Putin鈥檚 system of government, where every official 鈥� from a village chief to the governor 鈥� explicitly answers to and serves the Russian president.
While millions of public workers are busy rooting for Putin and urging residents to vote, Roizman has dismissed the presidential vote as sham.
鈥淵ou can ask anyone and everyone will tell you who is going to win this election. What鈥檚 the point in going to vote then?鈥� he told The Associated Press.
But making public statements is the only thing Roizman is free to do. In the president鈥檚 鈥減ower vertical,鈥� as Putin once named it, if those who oppose him are not already sidelined or jailed, they simply have no executive powers or budgets to take on the Kremlin.
A former convict and leader of a vigilante anti-drug movement, 55-year-old Roizman might seem unelectable. But in his hometown of Yekaterinburg in the Urals, he won a tight mayoral race against a pro-government candidate in 2013.
A visitor to Roizman鈥檚 office is immediately struck by the glaring absence of the one requisite symbol of power in Russia: a portrait of Putin. On his first day, Roizman hung a portrait of dissident poet Josef Brodsky. His office is open, and his hour-long interview with the AP was interrupted when a retiree stepped in to complain about his low pension.
When Roizman ran for office, one of his campaign promises was to improve the quality of water in this industrial city. But once elected, Roizman realized he was unable to do that.
鈥淚 have no budget to spend,鈥� Roizman said. 鈥淭he city has been stripped of its major powers, its major sources of income.鈥�
Like other regional capitals, Yekaterinburg in the 2000s fell victim to Putin鈥檚 鈥減ower vertical鈥� concept, which was presented as an antidote to lawlessness and the lack of coordination between the federal government and regional authorities.
But in the end, that policy simply forced Russian regions to send most of their revenues to Moscow. Now they receive back only a fraction. The system was supposed to help economically struggling regions like the North Caucasus, but it has angered wealthier cities like Yekaterinburg and Kazan, which feel they are paying for corruption and mismanagement several time zones away.
Roizman鈥檚 background reflects Russia鈥檚 ups and downs since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. He spent more than two years in prison in the 1980s for robbery and fraud, something he describes as a youthful mistake.
After stints making jewelry and researching local history, Roizman made his name by forming a volunteer group to stem a drug epidemic in the Urals. Official estimates in 2003 put the number of drug users in this region of 4 million at 235,000 people.
鈥淲e had a drug catastrophe,鈥� Roizman recalled. 鈥淎mbulances were driving around picking up corpses from the sidewalks.鈥�
Yekaterinburg, which still has some of Russia鈥檚 highest HIV rates because of the 鈥�90s drug epidemic, lies on the drug route that ran from Afghanistan and Central Asia to Europe. It鈥檚 about 1,050 miles (1,700 kilometers) east of Moscow. He says the police were at best helpless to deal with the drug dealers, and at worst profiting from the drug business.
Roizman and his colleagues began to track down and round up drug dealers and set up private rehab clinics to which desperate families sent their addicted relatives. Many credit the City Without Drugs foundation for fighting Russia鈥檚 narcotics epidemic, but others remember reports of drug users locked up in rehab clinics against their will.
Roizman vehemently denies any wrongdoing and says he saved the lives of 鈥渢housands.鈥�
His 2013 win was also improbable because of his scathing criticism of the Kremlin.
Bashing the Kremlin from the sidelines is dangerous, but doing so within the system is almost impossible. Two other regional opposition leaders have been imprisoned on charges seen as retribution for their lack of compliance.
Nikita Belykh, former governor of the Kirov region who once employed Navalny as an unpaid aide, was arrested and sentenced this year to eight years in a high-security prison for accepting 600,000 euros ($740,000) in bribes.
Yevgeny Urlashov, who won a landslide victory in Yaroslavl鈥檚 mayoral race in 2012, was arrested a year later and spent three years in jail before being found guilty of accepting bribes and sent to prison for 12 1/2 years.
The popular Urlashov, who criticized the federal government for taking away the city鈥檚 taxes, posed a tangible threat to the Kremlin, Roizman said, because he convinced supporters to take to the streets.
鈥淭hat scared them,鈥� Roizman said.
Urlashov would not cooperate with local pro-Kremlin elites, so Moscow retaliated by cutting back the city鈥檚 budget. A year later, the mayor was slapped with bribery charges that many considered fabricated.
Roizman was going to run for governor of the Yekaterinburg region last year, a position that would give him a budget to spend, but he failed to gain enough required votes from local pro-Kremlin lawmakers to field his candidacy.
Roizman says he鈥檚 glad he didn鈥檛 get to run and win because of the inevitable Faustian bargains that he says all Russian politicians face under Putin. What would happen, he asks, if Kremlin authorities summoned him and offered to build the city a second subway line in exchange for his public support of the presidential election?
鈥淲hat would I do?鈥� Roizman said. 鈥淚鈥檓 ashamed to say it but I know what I would do: I would cast my eye and say 鈥楨veryone should to go to vote.鈥� I would trade it for the second metro line.鈥�
Now, in a visible though largely powerless position, the only thing left for Roizman to do is 鈥渟tay true to myself鈥� and call for a boycott of Sunday鈥檚 presidential election.
鈥淭here will never be a fair election under this government,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey have only one goal: to stay in power forever.鈥�