The government introduced a bill to the State Duma on the mandatory agreement with the Federal Ministry of Health of candidates for the heads of regional healthcare management bodies. This right already had the ministry until 2015. Formally, the requirement is drawn up through amendments to the law “On the basics of protecting the health of citizens”. In the explanatory note, the authors of the project recall that in accordance with Article 72 of the Constitution, the coordination of health issues is in the joint jurisdiction of the Center and the regions.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the heads of regional medical departments have changed in more than 20 regions, often new ministers previously worked as officials of Moscow medical institutions.

Careers and adventurers

For all the understandable “coronaviral” motivation of these changes, they become another sign of increasingly loss of political and administrative independence by the governors - formally it is precisely on them that they try to impose symbolic responsibility for what is happening. This combination at least motivates real experts poorly: to go to the shot position of the “responsible for everything” if it is impossible to influence anything either lightweight careerists - in the hope that they will “take them to Moscow” for a short time and soon, or frank adventurers. Neither those nor other good promise neither regions nor the federal center.

The governors have largely ceased to be the “owners” of their own administrations, forcedly working with industry “commissars”, whom they are agreed by a particular federal department. Administrations are increasingly ceasing to be teams, but resemble a set of managers poorly related to a friend, more oriented to specialized Moscow superiors. In such conditions, the governor becomes just a clerk, but with political responsibility.

Neither the police nor the prosecutor's office

It all began, as usual, gradually. The first from the governors were the right to influence the appointment of regional security forces. According to the Law on the Police, adopted by the Supreme Council of Russia in 1991, the heads of regions had the right to coordinate the appointment of the head of the Department of Internal Affairs with the federal center. The application of this right caused several scandals.

For example, in 1999, the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, did not agree with the resignation of the head of the Main Directorate of Moscow Nikolai Kulikov and resisted the appointment of Viktor Shvidkin to this position. The conflict lasted more than a year and ended with a compromise appointment of the previously led by the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Kursk region and the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Southern Federal District Vladimir Pronin.

In 2001, the State Duma adopted amendments to the law “On the Police”, which deprived the regional leaders of the right to coordinate the appointment of chiefs of the Internal Affairs Directorate. But the right to coordinate the appointments of prosecutors with them, guaranteed by the Constitution, they have left: regional prosecutors are appointed by the Prosecutor General in agreement with the relevant entities (part 3 of article 129 of the Constitution). True, the Constitutional Court in the Decree of July 14, 1997 indicated that issues of the creation and activities of federal state authorities, including the court and the prosecutor’s office in force in the constituent entities of the Federation, are “classified as the federation and are not related to the peculiarities of the constituent entity of the Russian Federation”. So the consent of the region, when appointing the prosecutor’s position, acquired a formal character, in reality the prosecutors became much more connected with the interests of the federal center than the heads of the internal affairs bodies.

After the cancellation of the election of governors in the regions, vice-governors who oversaw relationships with security forces appear everywhere (they are called in the regions differently, but the meaning of the position remains unchanged). They have a double role (and sometimes it is difficult to evaluate what it is in each case): from the settlement of the relations of the administration and security forces and the coordination of decisions, to the supervision of the activities of the administration itself. Usually this is someone from the former leaders of the power structures of the region (FSB, Internal Affairs Directorate, Prosecutor, etc.), but there is also a security official.

Neither finance, no politics

The second “inner vertical” inside the executive vertical - after the power - became financial. Practice was the coordination with the Ministry of Finance of the appointment of the head of the regional financial body. In accordance with Article 26.22 of the Law “On the General Principles of the Organization of Legislative (Representative) and Executive Bodies of State Power of the Federations of the Federation”, the head of the financial body of the region is appointed to the position of persons who meet the qualification requirements established by the Government.

The practice was the coordination with the administration of the President of the appointment and the specialized vice-governor (or other official, depending on the structure of the regional administration) in domestic policy, and even assigned to the region of political technologists. This is not so hidden that the features of such distributions of technologists periodically write the federal press, and close to the Presidential Administration openly comment on this.

Dismantling of federalism

2000–2010 - The period of constantly growing unification, when all new federal norms were accepted for more and more private reasons that limited the rights of regions in making their own decisions and imposing uniform standards. There was a constant strengthening of centralization in all spheres of political and economic life, weakening of the political and economic independence of the regions, calling a spade a spade - the actual dismantling of federalism, replacing it with a policy of building executive and other verticals closed to the federal center. Although the power itself (especially Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency) and used actively modernization and other renovation rhetoric, speaking of the image of the “desired tomorrow” and thereby actively stimulating the effect of expectations of changes.

In 2014, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Environmental Medical Center introduced the practice of coordinating the appointments of the heads of relevant regional departments, concluding agreements with the regional authorities (formally this procedure is allowed, but it is not mandatory). At the end of 2018, the government ordered the governors to coordinate with the Rosleskhoz (under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Natural Resources) candidates for the position of regional minister of natural resources and ecology. In May 2020, the State Duma endowed the Ministry of Education with the right to coordinate regional leaders of the education sector, and the regional ministers themselves received the right to coordinate similar city and district officials. The Ministry of Justice received the right to coordinate the regional heads of the registry office. All these amendments have always been justified by the need to strengthen control over the quality of the activities of departments and increase their effectiveness. As affects the quality of management, the complete separation of officials from the interests and features of the territory where they work, it seems, is not interested in anyone.

A similar system is now in almost any specialized departments. For example, in 2017, the head of the State Committee for Transport and Roads of Bashkortostan was appointed 33-year-old native of Kumertau Timur Mukhametyanov, who headed the department of international organizations, transport policy and regional cooperation in the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Transport. After the resignation of his predecessor, the media openly wrote that “it was discussed that the Ministry of Transport would offer his person to this place,” in particular, Sergey Plekhanov, who worked as deputy general director of the ANO Directorate of the Moscow Transport Noner, was mentioned. However, he did not undergo approval.

As a result, the near circle of governors, as a result, narrowed almost everywhere to the leaders of his devices, assistants and secretaries.

The governors themselves are not local people

The picture exacerbates the actual composition of the governor's corps. In the personnel selection, a personal factor played a large role: while the first deputy head of the presidential administration was a native of Saratov Vyacheslav Volodin (from January 2012 to September 2016), the number of appointments to the posts of governors from local personnel was maximum since the appointment of appointments in early 2005. On the contrary, the Kiriyenko era (who changed Volodin in 2016) was accompanied by an unprecedented mass campaign for the replacement of governors in 2016–2020. The new appointments became mainly Varangians “Technocrats”. The minimization of personal and other connections with the regions of appointment and, accordingly, “non -vegetation” in the regional obligations of both political and economic properties in the implementation of federal policy were probably key considerations in the formation of such a policy.

Probably, the confidence that existing political and legal mechanisms allow you to draw through the elections a “referendum” type of almost any appointment, ultimately led to the fact that by 2017-2018. Ignoring the opinions of regional elites, when selecting the personnel of governors, has reached a maximum for all the time of actual appointments.

A feature of 1990–2010 It was that, in the conditions of a personification of Russian politics, the popularity of the governor often became a decisive factor that determines the vote, including for the party that he supported. There are many examples of this - from Eduard Rossel and Yuri Luzhkov to Konstantin Titov. But at a single bottom of the vote in September 2017, a new trend became noticeable, partly contrary to how the Russian regions used to vote: it almost disappeared (that is, slightly survived) the differentiation of the results in the governor's elections between political heavyweights with great public experience and freshly unlimited technocrats.

For example, very high indicators showed new and. O. Governors (Alexei Tsydenov in Buryatia; Alexander Evstifeev in Mari El; Maxim Reshetnikov in the Perm Territory; Anton Alikhanov in the Kaliningrad region; Nikolai Lyubimov in the Ryazan region), gaining more than 80% of the vote, despite the alien and (or) minimum experience in public policy. Against their background, even such a political heavyweight looked pale as the Belgorod governor Yevgeny Savchenko - he gained “only” 69.3%.

In fact, a situation was formed when the results of the governors are limited to “environmental resistance” and almost any person, being appointed by the governor, then receives significant support with a guarantee.

Three quarters - Varangians

Such a significant decrease in the personality factor (depersonalization of elections, or the management of governors) seems to be a direct consequence of the actual disappearance from the elections of the factor of the internal electoral struggle. The political and administrative system began to reproduce itself, and those who were able to wage this struggle (even in 2012-2015) were derived from it in one way or another or lost motivation.

The period that began in mid -2016 is often called the Policy of the appointment of “young technocrats”. Not all of them were young and not all technocrats, but combined them rather a weak attitude to the regions of the destination - as, for example, a bright politician from Yekaterinburg, Alexander Burkov, went to Omsk alien for himself. In total in 2016–2020. 70 managers in the 61st region were replaced (9 regions survived a double change of power). This time is not only the most tough for the entire latest Russian history of the rotation of governors (comparable only with the mass replacement of the first secretaries of the CPSU regional committees after 1985 during perestroika), but also the “anti -regional” selection of personnel: the governors began to resemble managers on a business trip.

If in 2012-2015. Of the 26 new appointed governors (not counting the chosen “contrary to” Sergei Levchenko in Irkutsk), the “Varangians” were 10 (38%), then in 2016–2020. Of the 67 appointed (not counting the elected “contrary” to Vladimir Sipyagin, Sergei Furgal and Valentin Konovalov) “Varangians” were already 49 (73%).

The very persistently translated term “technocrat” speaks primarily about the functional tasks of performing the tasks from the federal center and does not imply a significant independent political role.

Conflict of strangers with strangers

Some of the appointments of this period are really clean "technocrats" who previously worked in different ministries or corporations. Those who did not previously engage in public politics obviously did not have the opportunity to form their own political teams. The maximum of their personnel support is their former colleagues and colleagues, while usually representing a narrow -minded specialization and, for this reason, are usually unsuitable for the formation of administration blocks, in other areas. Sometimes a similar governor comes to the region without his team at all and has been working with local personnel for a long time. On the other hand, even with the appointment of governors with their own experience in public policy, their independence in solving personnel issues, as the analysis shows, turned out to be very limited.

Almost all appointments of 2016–2020. (as well as part of the appointments of an earlier period) were forced to either put up with the preservation of the previous administrative team (due to the risks of loss of control) and become more likely symbolic figures, or to form complex administrations, which usually have technocratic teams for individual political and economic blocs in the form of immigrants from ministries or corporations, as well as groups of representatives of local political and economic clans (as The rule, after the strict resignation of the predecessor). With each other, they are sometimes in complex, even conflicting relationships.

Such a personnel policy is partly the own choice of the governor and the consequence of the way to select governors. But it is also a standard translated from the center: new governors are not actually allowed to form teams only from their own, even if they are.

Regions without a head

The center seems to win and symbolically decapisons the regions, fulfilling its long -standing dream. What does he get for this?

Governors 1990–2000, for all their ambiguity, were primarily politicians. Clients, consumption, corruption undoubtedly existed. But the then managers of the regions, as a rule, well understood that in order to preserve the authorities it was necessary to rely on informal ties and the real support of citizens. Often this system acted like the film “Godfather”: universal circular guarantee, today the governor helps someone, does a favor, and tomorrow he will ask for a return service. Such governors could always ask someone informally, and almost no one could refuse them. They often sought not to destroy their opponents to the end, turning into irreconcilable enemies, but cooping, giving them “for feeding” some positions and structures. Such schemes worked, including in the elections: officials could go to violations, knowing that the system would not abandon them.

The current “technocratic” power against this background is cold and selfish: it is not going to share with anyone, she strives to simply destroy opponents, in many ways, and giving birth to a new city opposition. That is why she does not want to listen to anyone, not to ask for anything more than the instructions.

Control without support

For a technocrat, undoubtedly the implementation of instructions from Moscow is more important than taking into account the opinions of local elites and the population. That is why three large "but" arise.

Firstly, it will be difficult for him to rely on local elites in a crisis.

Secondly, the same goes for the population. The governor who has no personal authority is a bad support and a bad communicator in any difficult situation.

Thirdly, it is strange to expect internal motivation for the real development of the territory from a person who came “on a business trip”, and everyone knows that he is temporarily, neither he, nor his children, nor his grandchildren will live here, he knows this, and the elites, and voters.

Does technocracy have pluses? Yes, undoubtedly. The compliance with various standards and regulations improves. The governor, who arrived in the region temporarily, in the calculation of a continuation of a career in the federal center, will strive to first not spoil the biography. For this reason, he is unlikely to create new clans around him and encourage corruption. There are cases of how in some regions a local business unsuccessfully tried to find approaches to the new governors: the appointment made it clear that he would not enter into any informal relations. It turns out more order, less corruption, but there is less chance of development and competent answer in a crisis situation.

However, if you imagine the situation that the federal government suddenly “shakes”, then the local vacuum may turn out to be in the field - the “technocrats” will quickly leave, leaving an administrative void. Obviously, they cannot be any real support of the center on the ground. There are more and more controls, but there are fewer supports.

It is impossible without democracy

Where is the output, how to arrange the governor between two extremes - closer to people of autocrats and plutocrates of 1990–2000. and cold technocrats 2010? Как представляется, он — в развитии демократических процедур и системы сдержек и противовесов, уходе от жестких персонифицированных систем, где вся власть фактически принадлежит одному лицу. Граждане должны иметь возможность избирать действительно своего губернатора, и его должен контролировать избранный этими же гражданами парламент. Задача федерального центра не навязывать территориям своих ставленников, а не допускать злоупотреблений со стороны местных чиновников. Тогда реальную опору будут иметь и сами губернаторы и федеральная власть будет опираться на реальные интересы граждан. Но эта цель имеет значение только для тех, кто думает о будущем. Однако у чиновников думать о будущем не принято, им важно, чтобы их не уволили здесь и сейчас и чтобы внизу была своя собственная вертикаль.

The governor is not the owner - vtimes