Why are governors leaving in droves? Elite Update

In just the last 10 days, the resignation has affected the head of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Dagestan, the Nizhny Novgorod Region Valery Shantsev, the Samara Region and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug Igor.

Several heirs of the resigned heads of regions are already known. So, a 40-year-old was appointed to replace Shantsev, who previously held the post of First Deputy Minister of Industry of Russia. The Samara region was headed by the former mayor of the regional capital.

The first deputy director of the Russian Guard is being considered as the main candidate for the post of head of Dagestan. Koshin will be replaced by a 38-year-old who has worked as deputy head since November 2014.

Next in line, according to an informed interlocutor, is the resignation of the Omsk governor.

“This will be completed by the 10th (October 10), as a result, from 8 to 11 replacements for new candidates for governors will be proposed, taking into account those that have already been announced. The number of resignations depends entirely on the decision of the president,” explained a person close to the Kremlin.

According to him, the replacement of the head of the Omsk region is long overdue.

“Yes, changes are required in the Omsk region to improve manageability in the region,” the source said.

Earlier, the press secretary of the head of the region called the information about the planned resignation "an artificially created wave of rumors" and said that Nazarov's schedule was scheduled several weeks in advance.

Political scientists from the Minchenko Consulting holding have compiled their own list of governors who may soon lose their post as head of the region. This became known from the expert report "Politburo 2.0 and the governor's corps."

The governors were evaluated according to nine criteria: for each of them it was possible to get from three to 10 points. The criteria for evaluating the work of the heads of regions were divided into "bonuses" and "fines".

Political scientists attributed the presence of large projects in the subject, the recognizable image of the governor and his support by the near-Kremlin forces to the first one. The “penalty” criterion included federal and regional conflicts, as well as criminal cases and arrests of relatives of the heads of regions.

The experts came to the conclusion that the next heads of the regions that will be on the list "for departure" will be the heads of Kalmykia, North Ossetia, Altai, Novosibirsk, Murmansk, Omsk, Vladimir, Ivanovo and Voronezh regions, as well as the heads of the Altai and Primorsky territories.

All candidates received low marks - from four to nine points. At the same time, the head of Kalmykia, Alexei Orlov, received the lowest score - his experts rated it at four points. Five points were given to the head of the Novosibirsk region. The head of the Murmansk region, the governor of the Altai Territory and the head of the Omsk region Viktor Nazarov have no less low scores - they received six points each.

Political scientists recognized the mayor of Moscow, the head of the Tula region and the head of the YaNAO as the most persistent leaders - they all scored 19 points each.

A member told Gazeta.Ru that the immediate resignation of the governor of the Kemerovo region is not ruled out, primarily due to age. According to her, the reason for the change of most heads of regions is the course towards rejuvenation of personnel. As for the timing of resignations, one must proceed from the fact that the current president of Russia will go to another term next year.

“By this time, it is necessary that the newly appointed heads of regions gain confidence in their posts, orient themselves, and take control. They need to be given a temporary backlog in order to establish themselves. It is undesirable to change the heads of such large regions immediately before the presidential elections, ”the political scientist pointed out.

Image copyright Dmitry Serebryakov/TASS

Head of Karelia Alexander Khudilainen announced that he had decided to resign early and not participate in the elections in September. He became the fifth head of the regions in the last nine days who decided to give way to candidates selected in the Kremlin.

"I appealed to the president about the early resignation of the head of the Republic of Karelia. This is a deliberate, balanced decision by me not to go to the elections, which are only 207 days away," Khudilainen said. He added that he does not yet know where he will be appointed, but noted that he is ready for any job that the president entrusts him with, Interfax reports.

Khudilainen became the fifth Russian governor since last Monday to step down early. The successors of all four governors who had already left were appointed people from Moscow. Khudilainen has headed Karelia since May 2013.

Earlier, RIA Novosti reported that President Vladimir Putin, acting head of Karelia, could appoint Artur Parfenchikov, head of the Federal Bailiff Service. He himself did not confirm these reports. "No, it's not true yet," Parfenchikov told Rambler News Service on Monday.

Parfenchikov was born in 1964 in Petrozavodsk. In his place in the service of bailiffs, according to Vedomosti, the candidacy of the former State Duma deputy Vladimir Pligin is being considered.

All five resignations were previously predicted by the Vedomosti newspaper. She published a list of governors she believes the Kremlin has decided to replace ahead of the September 2017 regional elections and the 2018 presidential campaign.

As a result, the head of the Perm Territory, Viktor Basargin, the head of Buryatia, Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn, and the Governor of Novgorod, Sergei Mitin, left their posts, and the governor of the Ryazan Region, Oleg Kovalev, resigned the day before. His former deputy governor of the Kaluga region, State Duma deputy Nikolai Lyubimov.

In all four cases, the “Varangians” became acting governor: Maxim Reshetnikov, head of the Moscow Economic Policy Department (Perm Territory), Alexei Tsydenov, Deputy Minister of Transport of Russia (Buryatia), Andrey Nikitin, Director of the Strategic Research Agency, (Novgorod Region) and deputy Lyubimov.

However, the Kremlin emphasized that they were, to one degree or another, connected with the region, which they will lead before the gubernatorial elections in September this year.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday called the succession of gubernatorial resignations "the usual rotational process." "I would not consider it appropriate to look for some kind of undercover processes here," he said.

Russia is shaken by the resignation of governors for the second day. The heads of the Chelyabinsk region, Boris Dubrovsky, of the Altai Republic, Alexander Berdnikov, and Kalmykia, Alexei Orlov, have already left. The media reported on the imminent resignation of the head of the Murmansk region, Marina Kovtun. All the heads of regions who left their posts wrote a letter of voluntary resignation. Why the resignations are happening right now and why the country's leadership decided to rejuvenate the governor's corps - in the material "360".

predicted departures

The Vedomosti newspaper was the first to report on the spring resignations, citing sources close to the Kremlin. The publication predicted the departure of the leaders of six regions - the forecast for the first two days came true by half. The heads of the Chelyabinsk region, as well as the leaders of the Republic of Altai and Kalmykia, resigned. There is no official confirmation that Marina Kovtun will leave the chair of the governor of the Murmansk region yet.

According to forecasts, the head of the Orenburg region, Yuri Berg, and the governor of the Volgograd region, Andrei Bocharov, are next to be eliminated.

What the leaders of the regions who left their posts have in common is that their term of office expires this year and they all wrote voluntary resignations. Experts interviewed by 360 felt that this was nothing more than a cover.

“I don’t think it’s all at the call of the soul. There must have been consultations. And, most likely, they realized that they would not be elected. On the other hand, the authorities simply got their hands on them,” he said.

Evgeny Minchenko, the president of the Minchenko Consulting communications holding, agreed with him.

“As for the voluntary nature of these resignations, we understand that they are all voluntary-compulsory. I know for certain that Dubrovsky, and Berdnikov, and Orlov tried to hold on to their positions to the last, ”he said.

Director of the Institute of Contemporary State Development Dmitry Solonnikov called the situation with the resignations of three governors a planned rotation. He explained that initially, the governors were instructed to hold the post of head of the regions for no more than two terms, after which they should look for another job.

“We are accustomed to the fact that you can be in power in your subject of the federation almost forever, changing the legislation every time in order to extend the powers. But the rule that two terms - and that's it, was initially stipulated. We are now returning to this, and we need to get used to it. Quite a logical, normal, healthy system,” he assessed the past resignations.

He explained voluntary layoffs from three positions: the governor himself understands that the upcoming elections will not take place; the federal center got acquainted with the data of opinion polls of the population of the region and realized that it was time to change the government there; the head of the region received a more interesting offer, which is better to use now.

The chances of re-election of the retired governors in the upcoming elections were small, Leonid Davydov shared his opinion. “Therefore, ballast removal is a natural process,” he explained.

Another reason for the emergence of new faces as leaders of the region is the policy of rejuvenating the authorities.

“For a long time, the leadership of the region meant that a person would be old enough. Then people came to the regional leadership at the age of 50 years. This was considered normal, and we practically did not have the practice of electing 30-40-year-old heads of regions. After 10-15 years, they are now all over 60 or so. Therefore, resignations are a completely logical process associated with the long leadership of the region and the already venerable age,” Dmitry Solonnikov said.

With the fact that there is a course for rejuvenation, Yevgeny Minchenko also agreed. But he noted that at the same time, of course, the rating and anti-rating of the governor, as well as the presence or absence of criminal cases, affect the resignation.

“If we are talking, for example, about the Chelyabinsk region, then there were a lot of questions from the security forces to Boris Dubrovsky. At the beginning of this week, a rather tough document of the Federal Antimonopoly Service was published,” he said.

Time to shoot and assign

The main resignations of governors in Russia take place in spring or autumn. At the same time, the interviewed political scientists agreed that it is best to do this in the first third of the year. During the time remaining before the elections, the new appointees will be able to get up to speed, prepare the region for the heating season and approve budgets.

But the main positive moment for the interim governors, Yevgeny Minchenko, called the novelty effect that the head of the region brings to his future voters.

“Spring resignations are more comfortable, because a year before the election to appoint an interim governor - he loses the effect of novelty, the “honeymoon” effect. And it will become more difficult to act as a figure that is associated with positive expectations,” he said.

Residents of the Chelyabinsk region, the Republic of Altai and Kalmykia will now expect positive changes from three new interim governors.

The governor of Kalmykia, Alexei Orlov, was replaced by the athlete Batu Khasikov. He used to

Former Deputy Minister of Energy Alexei Teksler went to the capital of the Southern Urals. According to Leonid Davydov, this official has long been predicted the position of governor.

For Chelyabinsk, he is not a stranger, but not quite his own either. Until the age of 16, he lived in this city, after which he moved to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, where he studied in Norilsk, and then headed the structures of Norilsk Nickel. As a manager, he managed to lead the northern city as a city manager, after which he went to work in the Ministry of Energy. As a governor, Texler should not be underestimated, Yevgeny Minchenko considered.

“Aleksey Teksler was not just a deputy, but a first deputy minister of energy. Moreover, he had a very large amount of authority and a very large sphere of influence,” he stressed.

Oleg Khorokhordin, chairman of GLONASS, went to Gorno-Altaisk. Formally, he, like Texler, can be considered local. He was born in the neighboring Altai Territory and worked at local enterprises until the early 2000s. Until he went to work for the plenipotentiary of the Central Federal District Georgy Poltavchenko, and then to the presidential internal policy department.

Both new leaders of the region joined the list of governors-graduates of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation (RANEPA).

“RANEPA has a big program that they are doing on the instructions of the president, a program for retraining managerial personnel. A lot of people went through it: Alexei Teksler, and Khorokhordin, and many others who occupied one or another significant position, ”said Yevgeny Minchenko.

According to political scientist Dmitry Solonnikov, the connection with the region for the acting governor and his education are not the main factors for the appointment.

“It seems to me that the game of these centers of power is becoming the most important, the most relevant. The alignment of various groups of influence by region is becoming more and more important, more and more relevant. And therefore, you need to look at who is behind this or that appointment, and not what kind of education he has or what region he comes from, ”he explained.

Political scientists also answered the question whether the Leaders of Russia program, which is supervised by the head of the Higher School of Public Administration of the RANEPA Alexei Komissarov, can release a potential future official.

Yevgeny Minchenko called this program an attempt to copy the model that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had, when it was possible to grow from the Komsomol to significant positions.

Dmitry Solonnikov once again clarified that for the appointment of the leaders of the region, participation in such a competition would only be an additional opportunity to advance. Basically, a potential official will have to go through a series of approvals in any case, taking into account the interests of various structures.

"Leaders of Russia" are in the framework of the personnel policy of Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko. This is his program, these are his ideas, his methods that he brings to work.<…>But the fact that, due to one competition, a person can be appointed to responsible government positions, this is such a dubious practice. I don't think that's what they're following," he explained.

At the same time, Solonnikov noted that opinions differ about the project itself. There is an opinion that he is supported by the president, who met with the participants of the competition, but, on the other hand, Vladimir Putin did not come to the final, which can be seen as a negative attitude on his part.

“The project remains one of the active social elevators and an element of influence of the group that stands behind Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko. But it is not beneficial to everyone and not everyone is satisfied. This is the tool that legitimizes Kiriyenko's henchmen,” the expert summed up.

Perspectives of Berg

Another on the list of governors who may lose their post is the head of the Orenburg region, Yuri Berg. It was reported that Igor Komarov, the plenipotentiary representative of the Volga Federal District, was allegedly not very pleased with his activities. However, in the Berg administration, such information was called rumors. One way or another, according to experts, in order to remove Berg from office, this is not enough.

“There are other sources of information. The plenipotentiary gives his information, the security forces - theirs, the Ministry of Economic Development - theirs. And in the end, it all comes together in one whole,” said Dmitry Solonnikov.

According to Yevgeny Minchenko, Yuri Berg is one of the strongest governors today. After the scandalous resignation of the mayor of the capital of the region, Yevgeny Arapov, Dmitry Kulagin, one of the most trusted people of the governor, became the head of the city. So Yuri Berg strengthens his team.

“Also, Vladimir Putin has a rather positive attitude towards him personally, but there is really a problem associated with age,” Yevgeny Minchenko noted.

Single voting day

This year, the election of leaders will be held in 16 regions of the country. In two of them they will take place ahead of schedule: on Sakhalin and in the Trans-Baikal Territory.

“On Sakhalin, Kozhemyako left his post ahead of schedule, moving to a neighboring region. In the Trans-Baikal Territory - due to the fact that the leadership really did not cope with its work and had to resign, ”said Dmitry Solonnikov.

Heads of 11 regions will get rid of the prefix "interim acting". The leaders of the Vologda, Murmansk, Volgograd and Orenburg regions are going to re-elections. If nothing changes soon.

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In September 2018, Russia will host a traditional voting day for elections at various levels. This includes changing heads of at least 25 Russian regions. Only in a small number of regions, elections will be held in connection with the expiration of the term of office of its head. In most cases, the resignations of governors were early, and it is obvious that the official wording “of their own free will” is at least slyness. Most of the resignations happened in the fall of 2017, but some of them happened this year. The resignations of governors in 2018 - in which regions their heads were fired, is it worth waiting for the continuation of sweeps in the governor's corps this year.

In which regions were the governors fired in the fall of 2017

A large-scale purge of the heads of regions happened in Russia at the end of September - the first half of October last year, shortly after a single voting day in 2017. Then the heads of the following regions were fired:

• Samara Region,
• Nizhny Novgorod Region,
• Nenets Autonomous Okrug,
• Krasnoyarsk region,
• The Republic of Dagestan,
• Primorsky Krai,
• Oryol Region,
• Novosibirsk region,
• Omsk region,
• Ivanovo region,
• Pskov region.

On the eve of the new year, the head of the Voronezh region was also dismissed. In total, thus, at the end of 2017, twelve heads of regions were fired. Their term of office is 2019-2020.

Nine more governors were fired in the first half of 2017. In these regions, new heads were elected in September 2017.

In the case of all the governors dismissed last fall, the wording was the same - “of their own free will”. In fact, of course, it was a purge carried out by the presidential administration. And as the real reasons for the dismissal, the media cited mainly the fact that the governors could not get along with the local elites or did a poor job of doing their job.

The most unpleasant thing in a series of gubernatorial resignations is that the federal government does not even hesitate to show who actually appoints the heads of regions. In Russia, direct elections of governors have formally returned, and almost all of the dismissed heads of regions were elected by people. However, just as the election procedure itself artificially creates a lack of alternatives for a candidate from power, so the governor himself knows perfectly well who actually elected him and cannot resist instructions in the form of recommendations from Moscow to leave his post.

The resignations of governors in 2018 - which have already taken place

In 2018, six more heads of regions “voluntarily” resigned. The first of a series of these cases stands out somewhat - it is about the resignation of Aman Tuleev from the post of head of the Kemerovo region. After the March tragedy in Kemerovo, when dozens of people, most of whom were children, were burned to death in the local shopping center Zimnaya Cherry, Tuleev behaved extremely ugly. It was obvious that he was most worried not because of what had happened, but because of how the Russian president would react to the situation.

Obsequious apologies to the head of state for the fact that there was a loss of population in the entrusted territory, accusations against the relatives of the victims who had gathered that they were hired buzzers. This is how Tuleev was remembered in the days of the tragedy.

At first it seemed that there would be no consequences for Tuleev from the Winter Cherry, but on April 1 he resigned.

In five more regions, the replacement of the governor's corps took place literally in the last two weeks - in the second half of May. In three cases out of five, the heads of regions became ministers of the new government of Russia:

• On May 18, the governor of the Tyumen region, Yakushev, left his post due to his appointment as Minister of Housing and Public Utilities in the federal government.
• On the same day, Kobylkin, the governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, resigned due to his transfer to the post of Minister of Natural Resources.
• Finally, the Governor of the Amur Region, Kozlov, was appointed to the post of Minister for the Development of the Far East.

Spot cleaning was carried out on May 28 in two regions: the heads of the Magadan region and Yakutia left their posts.

Should we expect more resignations of governors in 2018?

On June 9 of this year, the deadline expires when you can fire some governors in the expectation that a new head of the region will be elected in the elections on September 9. If the Kremlin needs to replace some personnel in the posts of heads of regions, most likely, it will be necessary to wait for the dismissals of governors in the coming days.

However, such resignations are unlikely to happen. Analysts say there won't be a sweep like last year's for a variety of reasons.

First, last year's resignations were largely pre-election. It was important to replace the age-old governors with young ones in order to demonstrate the rejuvenation of personnel in the country. Unpopular governors were removed to increase the overall rating of power in the region.

Secondly, in 2018 there are quite a lot of elections of heads of regions without this. Taking into account the latest resignations, the heads will be replaced in 25 regions of Russia. In addition to the 12 regions where governors “voluntarily” resigned last fall and six resignations this spring, elections in seven more regions will be held on time. The powers of the heads of these regions expire in September 2018.

By all appearances, the necessary targeted replacements of personnel have been carried out by this point, and new resignations are possible only in extraordinary cases. For example, if the next governor is caught taking a bribe, or if one of the heads of regions has a sharp deterioration in health.

According to the head of the Murmansk region, this decision was not easy, but she is sure that "it will be better." Kovtun added that she would not participate in the next gubernatorial elections, which are scheduled for autumn 2019. It is known that now she is going to go on vacation for 150 days.

Yury Berg, Governor of the Orenburg Region, has held this position since 2010. A statement on the website of the regional government says that the election of a new head of the region will take place in September 2019.

Governors resignations:

The head of the Chelyabinsk region Boris Dubrovsky to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin's resignation on March 19. On the same day RBC with reference to interlocutors close to the leadership of the region and the Kremlin it was reported that the governor of the Murmansk region, Marina Kovtun, wrote a resignation letter, but then she did not confirm or deny this information. On March 20, the resignation of the head of the Republic of Altai, Alexander Berdnikov, followed by the resignation of the head of Kalmykia, Alexei Orlov.

What is important to know:

The resignation of two more people was also considered possible, but less likely - this concerned the head of Kalmykia, Orlov, and the governor of the Volgograd region, Andrei Bocharov.