In the mayoral elections, the metal plant backed Sergei Shmakov, the chairman of the Norilsk city council. However, he faced stiff competition from Valerii Melnikov, the chairman of the Norilsk Nikel federation of trade union organizations, whose membership includes about half of the workers of this company. Melnikov is often described as a northern Lech Walesa. In February, Melnikov had organized a hunger strike, demanding that the company share its profits with its workers. He based his campaign on a sharp attack against the company's social policies. Melnikov's opponents claimed that Russian Aluminum financed his campaign, but they produced no evidence to support this assertion. Russian Aluminum opposed Khloponin's victory in the Krasnoyarsk gubernatorial campaign.

In the first round of voting on 20 April, Melnikov won 47 percent of the vote, almost enough for an outright victory. Only 31.4 of the voters backed the company's official candidate Shmakov. The other two candidates in the race received less than 4 percent of the vote combined, while 16.6 percent voted against all candidates. It was clear that Melnikov would win in the runoff that was supposed to take place 4 May.

However, on 22 April the city procurator demanded that the city electoral commission request that the courts cancel Melnikov's registration as a candidate. The electoral commission immediately did as it was told and on 28 April, the court removed Melnikov from the race. Melnikov only received the full text of the decision on 30 April, right before the beginning of the 1 May holiday, and had no time to appeal it.

The court then tried to hold the race with Shmakov competing against the third-place finisher. However, Shmakov immediately withdrew, saying that he did not want to be "appointed without taking into account the democratic will of the Norilsk residents." Observers, however, pointed out that Shmakov had no chance of winning since the majority of voters likely would have voted "against all" in a race that did not include Melnikov. Subsequently, the other two candidates withdrew from the race and the elections had to be cancelled due to a lack of candidates.

Analysts described the outcome as a Pyrrhic victory for Norilsk Nikel since it blocked the election of a candidate it did not like, but the company's management failed to convince the voters to support its own favored candidate.

Melnikov's supporters claim that the court based its calculations on erroneous data. The court claimed that the printer A. Manchenko did not charge Melnikov enough for the fliers he printed for the campaign. Manchenko charges 30 rubles a sheet for laser printed flyers up to 1,000 copies. However, he printed 60,000 fliers on an offset press for Melnikov. This service was much less expensive per flyer, costing only 2.3 rubles a sheet. Nevertheless, the court's decision was based on the assumption that Melnikov should have paid 30 rubles a flyer for the 60,000 fliers that he received rather than the lower price.

Melnikov's supporters charged that it was not fair to remove the most popular candidate from the race on the basis of incomprehensible charges. They accused the city electoral commission, procurator, and court of ignoring the popular will in order to back political or corporate interests. Melnikov's supporters warned that his case had set a precedent in which it would be possible to remove other candidates that the authorities do not support in the future.

Arkadii Lyubarev in Moscow