The governor goes to his uncle

In mid-August, President Vladimir Putin continued in Barnaul and Irkutsk the series of "political squiggles" begun in Nizhny Novgorod by the appointment of "Varangian" Shantsev. At the same time, he spoke about a new mechanism for empowering governors. The mechanism as a whole, in his opinion, is quite efficient, procedural delays are associated with the insufficiently effective work of the presidential administration in selecting people in the regions, and the Kremlin's goal is to build a system in which governors would be "bloodly connected with national interests."

Meanwhile, reality does not seem to fully justify the restrained optimism shown by the president. In fact, all recent appointments/approvals of governors have taken place in violation of the procedures and deadlines established by presidential decrees. Choosing between stability and efficiency, the Kremlin has almost always staked on stability, keeping old leaders in their posts; while choosing between the loyalty and efficiency of governors, the Kremlin steadily puts on loyalty, preferring directors from federal departments as new appointees.

The selection of candidates takes place behind the scenes, often from unprepared people who have never dealt with the management of the region. At the same time, not only the general public, but also the "presidential people" in the person of the local activists of United Russia and even the presidential envoys are excluded. In most cases, the system is idle, reappointing current heads. As soon as it comes to real problems, it stalls.

Conceived with the aim of reducing instability and uncertainty in the political development of the regions, the new management model has already caused instability. It is also important that the Kremlin's actions are dictated by tactical rather than strategic considerations, as if the elections of the Duma and the President, for the sake of which everything was partly started, are coming not in more than two years, but much earlier.

The personnel decisions being made are focused not on winning, but on not losing, moreover, momentary, resulting in the conservation of the situation, a delay in development.

With the replacements/approvals of heads already made since the beginning of the year, two new cases bring the total number of heads appointed by Putin with the consent of the regional parliaments to 29 - this is a third of the country's regions. At the same time, not counting the deceased Mikhail Evdokimov, only 5 chapters, that is, every sixth, have been replaced. This is much less than changed in the elections.

According to the full program, with the selection of candidates alternative to the current head and the publication of their names, appointments were made only in 9 regions - less than a third of the total number. In other cases, the governors ahead of schedule, sometimes a year or even two, asked the president for confidence and always received it. Moreover, the proportion of this kind of "initiators" over time, contrary to expectations, increases - from the end of March to July, chapters were not approved in the usual, and not simplified, order. On the one hand, this means a relative lack of conflict, on the other hand, even less publicity and transparency than even established by the new scheme.

The recent Nizhny Novgorod, Irkutsk, and Altai examples testify to the Kremlin's desire to suppress any manifestations of public policy. The center sends an unambiguous signal to the regional political clans, demanding consent. In the case of civil strife, the Kremlin tends to cut the knots rather than unravel them, and is not inclined to give preference to any of the conflicting parties. At the same time, by chance or not, in the largest regions in terms of the number of inhabitants (and voters) - Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod, Irkutsk regions, Altai Territory - governors - public politicians are replaced by managers and apparatchiks.

So, until now, the president has trusted everyone who asked him about it. This only means, however, that the right to ask the president for confidence still needs to be earned. A certain ritual has been developed, according to which the head of the region first seeks a positive signal from the president, often a personal meeting with him. The conditions under which this happens are shrouded in mystery, as are the names of the guards who open the gates to paradise for the aspirant. According to various estimates, this can cost up to several tens of millions of dollars, including in installments, with the condition that representatives of the side that opens the gates be appointed to key financial posts in the region. After that, the governor (and it is difficult for other applicants to compete with him, unless a tender is announced for the vacant seat) personally brings a declaration of confidence to the Kremlin.

There have been no refusals yet, but there is a known case when the governor was ordered to withdraw his application - they say, the Kremlin does not have time to consider it on time. About what it cost the applicant for re-approval morally and financially, history is silent, but after a while he was again approved for his post. It is known that they tried to submit statements of confidence and meet with the president and both recently dismissed governors: Khodyrev from Nizhny Novgorod and Govorin from Irkutsk. To no avail.

Until now, such a system of "enlightened feudalism" although it has given failures, but private, not entailing the collapse of the system as a whole. However, an increasingly less transparent system is becoming less and less effective, which brings it closer to a crisis.

Meanwhile, seven more governors will expire before the end of 2005, which, taking into account the unification of the Perm Region and the Komi-Permyatsky District, will result in six new appointees.

At one time, the plenipotentiary in the Siberian District, Leonid Drachevsky, tried to move federal controllers in the field from their native regions, where they grew up and made a career, to others. As a result, former Yeltsin presidential representatives in the regions were appointed chief federal inspectors in those regions where they knew no one and where they had neither connections nor obligations. It is unlikely that this proved to be effective even from the point of view of the Kremlin. In any case, this practice has not become widespread either in the Siberian or in other districts. It looks like the Kremlin is now ready to revive the practice of horizontal rotation at the level of governors. At least the outgoing governor of Irkutsk, Boris Govorin, said he received an offer from Putin to head another region and turned it down.

The very fact of such a proposal testifies at least to two things. First, the Kremlin is not satisfied with governors that can be replaced as such, but with persons in a specific political configuration; transferred to another regional context, they may well be suitable. Secondly, the Kremlin is already facing the problem of finding jobs for governors to be replaced: in the revived nomenklatura system, they must receive a fairly high new position, and such high and at the same time independent positions that are being vacated - like the post of federal minister or ambassador - cannot be found at all.

Discussing the recent appointments, commentators noted above all the growing loyalty of the newly appointed governors to the Kremlin, paying much less attention to another important trend - the weakening of the governor's position in the region. The fact is that the first series of strikes against the governors' corps in 2000-2003 sharply weakened them at the federal level, but at the regional level their power even increased in a number of cases. In close connection with business - regional and federal - the governors have become a kind of regional oligarchs. New appointments and their system itself break this state of affairs, which has its advantages. Another thing is that a bad and inefficient system can be replaced not by a better and more efficient one, but simply by paralysis of power. After all, the weakening of the governor's power, while at the same time reducing the transparency of power as such and its accountability to citizens, is a dangerous thing.