Translated material
Hunting season
On April 13, the Investigative Committee on suspicion of taking a bribe detained another regional heavyweight, ex-governor of Mari El Leonid Markelov.
Since 2012, there has been an intensification of prosecutions of governors on corruption charges, and the intervals between cases are being reduced. At first, we saw one case a year, and now, about once every six months, the next governor is fired and a criminal case is opened. Why is this happening? First of all, this is a kind of compensation: the governors became stronger as a result of Medvedev's political reform, when the practice of electing governors was returned, albeit under the strict control of the Kremlin. Votes, direct legitimacy - an undeniable increase in the political significance of governors. At the same time, there was a process of narrowing the powers of local self-government and a reduction in the political field in which political parties could operate. This in turn, as a side effect, entailed the strengthening of the governors. Reduced the proportion of deputies passing through the regional lists. Who is the beneficiary? Governors. Returned single-members. Who got stronger? Including the governors. The lists are not written in Moscow, they are compiled by regional administrators. That's it in order to compensate for this strengthening, the Kremlin decided to use force on the governor's corps.
The second reason is the need to intercept the anti-corruption agenda from the opposition, including, and above all, Alexei Navalny.
If we talk about the specific situation with the ex-governor of Mari El Markelov, then this story is different from the previous ones. Firstly, two governors were arrested in a month (a little earlier, the ex-governor of Udmurtia Alexander Solovyov became a defendant in the anti-corruption case. - NT). This has never happened before. Secondly, earlier, as a rule, governors were detained at the time of dismissal, and Markelov was first allowed to leave quietly, no complaints were made against him - publicly - they even promised a new job. Although there was compromising material on Markelov, mass dissatisfaction with his work, which broke through both the local media and the blogosphere, also happened, and by no means yesterday. For two years now, the case of his colleague, ex-mayor of Yoshkar-Ola Pavel Plotnikov, for example, has been investigated.
Why did they decide to detain and isolate Markelov now? There is only one reasonable answer: the case against the governor is always an informational occasion that can be used to switch public attention, to interrupt someone else's agenda. Recently, several topics uncomfortable for the authorities have appeared in the information sphere at once - Alexei Navalny was released after serving an administrative arrest, he announces new anti-corruption actions (an all-Russian action against corruption is planned for June 12. - NT), Vyacheslav Maltsev and other oppositionists were detained, the situation with our ally Assad in Syria has deteriorated sharply, a scandal at the UN... The authorities need a topic in which they themselves appear to be the initiator, an active player capable of controlling the situation.
One arrested governor or mayor every six months is a sign: do not think that you are in charge, we are watching you. Arrests once a week is paralysis
But I'm afraid that the Kremlin is mistaken, and in the story with the same ex-governor Markelov, power loses more than it finds. The arrest of the governor, who was quietly dismissed, looks ambiguous. The excessive frequency of anti-government cases devalues these scandals, deprives them of the status of strong newsworthy events. And, of course, it negatively affects the psychological state of the regional authorities. One arrested governor or mayor every six months is a sign: do not think that you are in charge, we are watching you. Arrests once a week is paralysis. Fear of error becomes dominant and this paralyzes local management. We have such legislation that it is almost impossible to comply with all the rules at the same time. In addition, the lion's share of governor's functions, especially those related to elections, are traditionally informal. Elections are even financed "informally" - the story of Nikita Belykh, the ex-governor of the Kirov region, is indicative in this sense. And it turns out that any governor goes under the article, even if he simply works for the interests of the power vertical. As a result, excessive pressure on governors undermines the vital foundations of the very vertical of power.
Finally, one more question: if all governors go under the article, then why are some in prison, while others are free? In other words, on what basis do they take? The answer is obvious: as a rule, those governors who do not have strong support behind their backs leave “in a bad way”. Under the distribution were "loners" who did not have or lost patrons.