| Altai Governor Mikhail Evdokimov gathered a full house against him within a year A year ago, pop entertainer and regular on the “Full House” program Mikhail Evdokimov won the gubernatorial elections in the Altai Territory. Even during the election campaign, Mikhail Evdokimov admitted that he did not have the knowledge necessary to govern the region. And he promised that he would bring with him a team of professional managers. A year was enough for the governor to turn almost all the political forces of the region against himself through personnel confusion and unconventional economic initiatives.
On March 11, a statement from 21 parties and public organizations in the Altai Territory was distributed in the local media, calling on Governor Mikhail Evdokimov for his voluntary resignation. Thus, branches of political parties and public organizations of the Altai Territory supported the appeal of the regional Council of People's Deputies to the head of the administration. The appeal states that there is a crisis of power in the region: “Evdokimov M.S. actually removed himself from the leadership of the regional administration. His entourage has still not presented any program for the socio-economic development of the region that would allow overcoming the crisis.”
According to local politicians, this led to the fact that in 2004 the growth rate of industrial production decreased by more than half compared to 2003. In addition, last year saw the largest reduction in livestock numbers in the last five years. “The beginning of 2005 in economic and social development aggravates the situation, and many negative phenomena become irreversible,” the letter says. Altai politicians actually accuse Mikhail Evdokimov of disrupting the implementation of the law on the monetization of benefits in the region and of failing to “establish a constructive dialogue” with the deputy corps, political organizations and public associations. Politicians consider the voluntary resignation of the governor to be the logical way out of the current crisis situation.
Leaders of 49 out of 72 municipalities of Altai hold a similar opinion about the prospects for the leadership of the region. They sent a letter to the Russian Presidential Administration, which contains a request to dismiss Mikhail Evdokimov. The heads of cities and districts of the region who signed the letter indicate that they support the deputies’ appeal to Mr. Evdokimov, in which the governor’s performance of his duties is recognized as improper. In addition to worsening economic indicators, Mr. Evdokimov’s opponents accuse him of personnel reshuffle. In nine months, the head of the regional administration replaced six deputies appointed by him, including two deputies for agriculture.
The description of the crisis in Altai is addressed primarily to the new presidential plenipotentiary representative in the Siberian Federal District, Anatoly Kvashnin, and President Vladimir Putin. Apparently, the political elite of the region hopes that in accordance with the new scheme for the appointment and removal of governors, the region can be rid of Mikhail Evdokimov.
Mr. Evdokimov himself has no plans to resign yet. At least on December 24, 2004, he admitted that he would not even raise the issue of trust with the president yet. In December, Mikhail Evdokimov assessed his chances of being re-elected “fifty to fifty, because anything can happen.”
The director of the Altai School of Political Studies, Yuri Chernyshov, told the Vremya Novostey newspaper that the governor’s team, sensing a real danger, finally began working on its image: “An experienced press secretary has been appointed, and ‘letters from workers’ are being organized in defense of the ‘people’s governor’.”
For example, a certain resident of Barnaul, Raisa Konovalova, sent a letter to the President of Russia, which was signed by more than 40 residents of the region. They ask the head of state to protect the popularly elected head Evdokimov from the forces seeking to remove him from power. The letter contains no personal requests to the president of the country - disabled people, pensioners, and working-class people simply call for respect for the choice of the people.
According to Mikhail Malyutin, deputy director of the Expert Institute of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Mikhail Evdokimov initially did not have any supporters in the local elite. “When he turned out to be absolutely administratively insolvent, unable and unwilling to work with the people who elected him, the question was how and at what speed the current total opposition would form against him within the local authorities,” he commented to Vremya Novostei on the situation in Altai. — The fact that Evdokimov cannot govern the region was initially clear to Evdokimov himself. The question was whether he could form a team relying on local and partly on attracted personnel or not. By the summer of last year it became clear that he couldn’t.”
Nevertheless, analysts have not yet observed any particular desire on the part of Vladimir Putin and his administration to change the Altai governor. “There is a very hostile attitude towards Evdokimov in the Siberian Federal District, where it is no coincidence that the former head of the region, Alexander Surikov, now works,” says Mikhail Malyutin. - But no one in Moscow takes plenipotentiaries seriously. And for Vladimir Putin, the very fact that the public and some parties are appealing to him, demanding the removal of the governor, is a complete attack on greatness.” The once-discussed merger of the Altai Territory with the Republic of Gorny Altai, opening up the possibility of new elections, is invariably met with rejection by the republic.
Yuri Chernyshov suggests that the creation of a regional government, headed by the current first deputy Sergei Shabalin, according to the scheme “Evdokimov reigns, and Shabalin rules” could rectify the situation. Let us recall that on March 3, the governor appointed one of the region’s main power engineers and leader of the “United Deputies” group of the regional council, Sergei Shabalin, as his deputy. Mr. Shabalin took Mikhail Evdokimov’s proposal as an invitation to engage in anti-crisis management: “When I came to the region’s energy system, it was also in crisis.” Daria GUSEVA |
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