Translated material
“This is good for the republic”
Head of Karelia Sergei Katanandov resigned
The decree on the resignation of the next long-lived governor, head of Karelia Sergei Katanandov, was signed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday evening. Mr. Katanandov's tenure was supposed to end in March 2011, but he reportedly asked the head of state to relieve him of his position ahead of schedule. Mr. Katanandov himself has so far refrained from commenting, and his press secretary told reporters that the boss is on a business trip. United Russia member Andrey Nelidov, who represented the region in the Federation Council, has been appointed acting head of Karelia.The resignation of Sergei Katanandov has been brewing for a long time. For the first time, people started talking about a change of power in Karelia in 2006, after the well-known riots in Kondopoga due to the interethnic conflict between Russian residents of the city and immigrants from the North Caucasus. But as a result, some republican security officials lost their posts. Nevertheless, Mr. Katanandov's rating has been steadily declining and recently, according to some sources, reached 6-7%.
A lot of economic claims have also accumulated against the region’s leadership. In Karelia, where the only resources available are timber and stone, there have been several scandals involving illegal licensing of the development of crushed stone deposits. Those involved in these scandals firmly included not only the Karelian departments responsible for environmental management, but also some influential members of Mr. Katanandov’s team. The situation in the housing and communal services sector last winter was so catastrophic that at the end of the heating season, leaflets calling for joining Finland were distributed in border areas.
Meanwhile, in 2011, not only the federal parliamentary, but also the regional election campaign will start in Karelia. It is imprudent to leave such an unpopular governor in office during such a period, and to change him in March 2011, after the end of his term of office, is too late: who knows what calls the local population will reach after another winter with such a housing and communal services system.
“It’s the political off-season now,” Oksana Goncharenko, an expert at the Center for Political Conjuncture, comments on this issue to a Vremya Novostei correspondent. -- It is most convenient to carry out a change of power now, since regional and parliamentary elections are planned next year. The new head of the region must have time to take control of the situation, ensure stability and the implementation of a favorable scenario.”
The President of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation, Mikhail Vinogradov, on the contrary, seems to think that the timing of the resignation was “rather formal.” “The anniversary of Karelia was celebrated in June, but few people came to the celebration, and this was already a signal,” he reminded the Vremya Novostei correspondent. -- There have been many reasons for his resignation: Mr. Katanandov’s conflict with the Plenipotentiary Representative of the Northwestern Federal District Ilya Klebanov, the defeat of United Russia in the elections of heads of municipalities (they even lost a couple of cities), the scandal surrounding the elections of the mayor of Petrozavodsk and, accordingly, conflict around the approval of Senator Devletkhan Alikhanov."
Let us recall that in the elections for the mayor of the Karelian capital last summer, the opposition nominated Mr. Alikhanov as its candidate, and in terms of ratings he was ahead of Mr. Katanandov’s protégé Nikolai Levin. However, at the last moment, Mr. Alikhanov withdrew his candidacy in exchange for the promise of a seat in the Federation Council. The new senator was approved only in March of this year, while in the upper chamber there was a scandal between United Russia and A Just Russia, headed by Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov. The fact is that Mr. Alikhanov, while still a deputy of the regional parliament, was a member of the “A Just Russia” faction there, although not, however, a member of this party. He came to the Federation Council as a member of the United Russia party. Probably, this story can be considered another confirmation of the lack of real party unity within United Russia: in Karelia, the party in recent years has naturally been associated with the team of Sergei Katanandov, while the central party leadership provided support to his obvious opponents. By the way, Devletkhan Alikhanov himself has already stated that he considers the departure of Sergei Katanandov “a good thing for the republic.”
It is unlikely that a large-scale hardware battle will break out over the leadership of Karelia. “To be honest, the region is not a gift,” admits Ms. Goncharenko. “The economic potential is not very high, but there is the potential for interethnic conflicts and risks associated with low trust in the authorities.” Nevertheless, the expert notes that “among the interested parties there are both local and federal pressure groups, for example, the embassy in the Northwestern Federal District.” “Katanandov and Klebanov did not have very good relations, so now the embassy will probably take advantage of the opportunity that has presented itself and will promote its candidacy. On the other hand, United Russia is interested in strengthening its positions,” emphasizes Ms. Goncharenko. “So the struggle will take place not between the candidates, but between the pressure groups nominating them.”
Mikhail Vinogradov also notes that “there is an interest in the region among a number of elite groups at the federal level, in particular in law enforcement agencies.” However, for now, analysts consider Andrei Nelidov, who was appointed acting, as the most likely candidate for the vacant position. “There are cases when acting governors did not become governors, but they are quite rare,” notes Mikhail Vinogradov. In turn, Oksana Goncharenko recalls that Mr. Nelidov “worked with United Russia in the North-West region, he knows the balance of power well, and for Karelia this is very important, since there is quite a conflict-ridden elite there and a new person in these conditions was it would be difficult."
Nevertheless, in addition to Mr. Nelidov, among the likely successors of Sergei Katanandov, according to Vremya Novostei, they also name the head of the Federal Bailiff Service, Artur Parfenchikov, a former prosecutor of Petrozavodsk and a university acquaintance of Dmitry Medvedev. True, in 2008, Mr. Parfenchikov himself already had to refute rumors about his likely appointment to Karelia. The same list also includes the former mayor of Petrozavodsk, Viktor Maslyakov, who, before coming to the post of mayor, was twice a deputy of the region’s legislative assembly. After the mayor's office, he first worked in the office of the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Viktor Zubkov, and is now deputy head of the Federal Forestry Agency. In this regard, it is interesting that Mr. Katanandov’s resignation was preceded by the appearance of a whole landing of federal inspectors in the Karelian mine forests, who identified numerous violations on the spot.