The failures of the government's candidates in the last elections have accelerated the pace of rotation of governors. The government is trying to replace unpopular leaders without waiting for new failures. The first to be eliminated were governors whose term of office will soon end, but it is possible that recently elected but already failing regional leaders may also be targeted by the campaign.

The defeat in the second round of the September elections affected not only the fate of the losing governors. Since then, four more regional heads have resigned “of their own accord,” and more resignations appear to be on the horizon: 12 governors’ terms expire in 2019.

Changing the head of a region in the fall, a year before the elections, may be a risky strategy: the “honeymoon” effect of the newly appointed acting head may end long before the vote. But perhaps right now, such early resignations make sense. The more problematic than expected 2018 elections have indicated the level of public dissatisfaction with government officials in general: perhaps the Kremlin’s new candidates will need more time than usual to win over voters, and they will have to prepare for the elections according to new rules that will have to be found by touch.

The authors of the report by the Liberal Mission Foundation on the progress and consequences of the recent elections (editor – Kirill Rogov) note that the previous scheme of dominance of governors and United Russia has stopped working. The dissatisfaction of the pro-government majority with the decline in living standards and the negative influence of the center on the situation in the region has multiplied by indignation at plans to raise the retirement age. A significant part of loyal voters have now voted against the government, demonstrating dissatisfaction with the current order of things. In this situation, sterilization of the political space in the regions and the exclusion of serious opponents did not work, as did bribery – a significant increase in salaries for public sector workers in the first half of 2018, writes economist Natalya Zubarevich.

The election results, notes one of the authors of the report, political scientist Alexander Kynev, have caused concern among Moscow managers who are trying to prevent a repeat of the protest scenario in the regions where elections are to be held in September 2019. They do not want the unpredictability of elections and, as a result, the appearance of unexpected figures in gubernatorial posts to become a system. The failures of individual governors have provided additional arguments for accelerating the rotation. At the same time, Kremlin managers are unlikely to allow strong and popular candidates to participate in the elections and, in order to restore predictability, they would like to get rid of governors with high anti-ratings under a plausible pretext, Kynev believes. However, newcomers, especially outsiders, with the current level of irritation with candidates from the authorities in general are capable of angering local residents no less than the annoying old-timers.

Rotation instead of elections