The former speaker of the Kemerovo regional legislature, who quit the post to make way for veteran politician Aman Tuleyev earlier in April, has become deputy governor of the Russian region.
Aleksei Sinitsyn wrote on Facebook on April 24 that he had been appointed as the governor's acting deputy for cooperation with municipal authorities in the region, a new post.
On April 6, Sinitsyn stepped down as chairman of the regional legislature and said that Tuleyev -- who had resigned as governor days earlier in the wake of a deadly fire at a shopping mall -- deserved the post.
Tuleyev, who is 73 and had been governor of the coal-mining region since 1997, resigned on April 1 amid calls to step down over the March 25 that killed 60 people, many of them children, at the Zimnyaya Vishnya (Winter Cherry) mall in the regional capital.
Tuleyev took a seat in the regional parliament two days later, and was elected its speaker on April 10.
Kemerovo residents and activists who blamed corruption and officials' negligence for the high casualty toll in the fire have voiced anger over Tuleyev's political survival after the blaze.
They planned a rally in the city on April 21, but the Kemerovo regional court banned the protest a day before it was scheduled to take place.
