Medvedev's New Governors

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Notes

¹A first draft of this essay was presented at the annual convention of the AAASS, Boston 12–15 November 2009. The author would like to thank his fellow panellists as well as Pål Kolsto and Elana Wilson Rowe for valuable comments on earlier drafts.The heads of the regional executive branch have various names, including governor, president, head of administration and mayor. For simplicity, these will be referred to collectively here as ‘governors’.

²The president of Karachaevo-Cherkessiya resisted elections until the spring of 1999. In Dagestan, the president was elected indirectly; in Udmurtiya, there was a parliamentary system until 2000.

³The clearest example of the new political ambitions of the gubernatorial corps was the emergence of a regionally based ‘party of power’, Fatherland–All Russia (Otechestvo–Vsya Rossiya), that attempted to challenge the Kremlin over the succession issue in 1999–2000.

⁴The vertical chain of command through which presidential policies are implemented is commonly referred to as ‘the executive vertical’ (vertikal’ vlasti). A central goal of Putin's presidency was to restore the power vertical.

⁵Officially, governors are not ‘appointed’, but ‘empowered’; the relevant legislation speaks of the ‘empowerment on the proposal of the President of the Russian Federation’ (nadelenie pol'nomochiyami po predstavleniyu Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii). As pointed out by Aleksei Titkov, however, even Putin has referred to the procedure as ‘appointment’ (naznachenie) (Titkov 2007, p. 101).

⁶First to express an opinion was President Mintimer Shaimiev of Tatarstan in June 2008, soon followed by another prominent regional leader, Murtaza Rakhimov of Bashkortostan (Bocharova 2008).

⁷The focus here is on formal background characteristics such as age, gender, place of birth, ethnicity and professional background, and not on aspects of the governors' performance once in office such as their ability to act independently or their popularity. Moreover, the essay concentrates on who was actually appointed, rather than discussing the nature of the current Medvedev–Putin tandem or what influence Putin still wields over the final choice of candidates.

⁸Unless otherwise indicated, all data on the governors' tenure as well as age, birthplace and professional background are taken from the author's own database on Russian governors.

⁹Medvedev made a total of 42 appointments, but two of these have been to Irkutsk, as the first newly appointed Governor Igor’ Esipovskii died in a helicopter accident in May 2009.

¹⁰Among the 12 incumbents who were not reappointed during this period there was at least one instance of job promotion: Sergei Sobyanin stepped down as governor of Tyumen in order to take up the highly influential position as Head of the Presidential Administration.

¹¹Moreover, of the 28 new appointments, two came as the result of the death of an incumbent (Viktor Shershunov in Kostroma and Mikhail Evdokimov in Altai Krai).

¹²One of the incumbents, Governor Igor’ Esipovskii of Irkutsk, had, as noted, died.

¹³Already in 2007, the Kremlin had developed a long list of criteria for evaluating gubernatorial performance. Initially, there were 82 different parameters. In April 2009, under the impact of the economic crisis, 102 new criteria were added, including unemployment rate, salary level and the share of small and medium-sized businesses in the regional economy. So far, however, these criteria have never actually been referred to when a governor has had to step down (Vorobeva 2009).

¹⁴According to Aleksei Titkov, the practice of ‘voluntary’ resignations commenced in the summer of 2007 when it became clear that Mikhail Prusak in Novgorod and Ivan Malakhov in Sakhalin would not be granted a new term if they appealed to the president for to be reappointed (Titkov 2007, p. 94).

¹⁵The degree to which the nomenklatura was able to reproduce itself in a post-Soviet setting is disputed (Lane & Ross 1999, pp. 143–66). Whereas Ol'ga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White have identified considerable continuity in personnel (Kryshtanovskaya & White 1996), Vladimir Gel'man has warned about drawing the conclusion that elite continuity means regime continuity: ‘it would be incorrect to conclude … that the old Communist nomenklatura was simply brought back to power’ (Gel'man 2002, p. 155).

¹⁶The data relate to governors in office at the end of 2004. The dataset does thus not include the last gubernatorial election, which took place parallel with the introduction of appointed governors in January and February 2005. If the 2005 results were included, this would push the average age even higher, as the new governor of Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Aleksei Barinov, was born in 1951, while the incumbent, Vladimir Butov, was born in 1958.

¹⁷This was the case in 12 out of 28 instances. Indeed, in six regions (Buryatiya, Kaliningrad, Kamchatka, North Ossetiya, Tula and Tuva) the new governors were more than 20 years younger than the incumbents.

¹⁸Vyacheslav Dudka (born 1960) replaced Vasilii Starodubstev (born 1931), who is best known for his participation in the August 1991 coup attempt to preserve the Soviet Union.

¹⁹The only exceptions were in Irkutsk, where Igor’ Esipovskii (born 1960) was replaced by Dmitrii Mezentsev (born 1959), and in Stavropol, where Aleksandr Chernogorov (born 1959) was replaced by Valerii Gaevskii (born 1958).

²⁰Igor’ Esipovskii is not included here, as he died in 2009.

²¹This dataset consists of 25 outgoing governors. Esipovskii is again excluded, as is his predecessor as governor of Irkutsk, Aleksandr Tishanin. Although Esipovskii was appointed by Medvedev, Tishanin had resigned before Medvedev assumed office. The outgoing governors were on average 60.1 years old (with an age range from 42 to 73).

²²For Medvedev's appointees (N = 41) the median is 52, the youngest governor being 35 and the oldest 66. For Putin's appointees (N = 42) the median is 55, with the youngest governor aged 34 and the oldest 76.

²³Murtaza Rakhimov (born 1934) stepped down in July 2010, more than a year before the end of his term; in September the same year, after a vicious public showdown, Moscow Mayor Yurii Luzhkov (born 1936) was fired (he was the first governor Medvedev fired, and only the fourth governor to be publicly forced to leave office since 2005). The only remaining governor from this cohort is thus Leonid Polezhaev in Omsk (born 1940).

²⁴Ramzan Kadyrov, who became governor at the age of 30, was an exception; the second youngest appointee in this group was 37-year-old Vladimir Yakushev in Tyumen.

²⁵Medvedev himself was born in 1963.

²⁶Putin was keen to replace Yakovlev. Not only had Yakovlev as deputy mayor of St Petersburg challenged and defeated Putin's old patron, Anatolii Sobchak, he had also been one of the leaders of the Fatherland–All Russia Bloc (Otechestvo–Vsya Rossiya), which had promoted itself as an alternative ‘Party of Power’ in the crucial 1999 State Duma elections. The Kremlin had tried to replace Yakovlev already in the 2000 gubernatorial election, but Matvienko had withdrawn from the race when it became clear that she stood no chance. This time Yakovlev had been ‘promoted’ to a new deputy premiership in Moscow in order to clear the field.

²⁷For the State Duma, data on gender composition were retrieved from www.duma.gov.ru; for the Federation Council from www.council.gov.ru/staff/members/index.html; and for the government from www.government.ru/gov, accessed 28 June 2010.

²⁸At the 24th Party Congress in 1971, Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev stated that Moscow now assigned outsiders as first secretaries only in ‘exceptional cases’ (Moses 1974, p. 146), and there was a marked drop in the number of outsiders appointed to the position of obkom first secretaries from the Khrushchev to the early Brezhnev years (Moses 1974).

²⁹Nikolai Petrov has noted that, in conjunction with the establishment of the federal okruga and the offices of the presidential plenipotentiaries, ‘one undeniably positive feature of these extensive cadre reshufflings [was] the restoration of the national “elite space”, which had been fragmented into 89 discrete pieces, with almost no horizontal elite exchanges’ (Petrov 2002, p. 82).

³⁰For a discussion on how Putin's first round of federal reforms affected the governors, see Blakkisrud (2003).

³¹On the governors' ability to influence the outcome of single-seat elections, see Lussier (2002). As regards the upper house, the Federation Council, many regions have chosen to appoint representatives with weak or no previous local affiliation (Remmington 2003).

³²The best-known cases of outsiders winning the governorship in electoral contests included some prominent generals-turned-politicians, like Aleksandr Lebed’ in Krasnoyarsk (1998–2002), Boris Gromov in Moscow Oblast’ (2000–present) and Georgii Shpak in Ryazan (2004–2008).

³³Still, the only example of a governor moving horizontally during Medvedev's rule is Oleg Kozhemyako, who was appointed governor of Amur in 2008, having previously been governor in the now defunct Koryak Autonomous Okrug (2005–2007).

³⁴This is based on the stricter definition of ‘nativeness’ but adding State Duma representatives to this category. Under Medvedev, 18 appointees out of 42 are defined as outsiders (of the remaining, nine were natives and 15 incumbents); under Putin 19 of 82 are defined as outsiders (nine were natives and 54 incumbents).

³⁵In connection with the adoption of the new procedures for nominating governors, Andrei Isaev, First Deputy Secretary of the Presidium of the General Council of United Russia, confidently announced: ‘The party system in Russia has developed to the point where parties can now bear full responsibility for the situation in the regions’ (Sidorov 2008). This is of course an exaggeration. Not only is Medvedev free to reject the list of names proposed by the party and nominate a candidate of his own, he also has the right to dissolve the regional parliament and call early elections if the legislators should reject the president's candidate twice.

³⁶If we include the Duma members in the latter category, the split becomes two before and seven after.

³⁷This change has taken place even though it is not the regional branch, but the party leadership in Moscow which decides on the final composition of the list of candidates to be forwarded to the Presidential Administration.

³⁸As regards the lower-level autonomous regions, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast’ and the autonomous okruga, ethnicity in general has been less politicised due to the weaker position of the titular ethnic groups in these regions. In relative terms, according to 2002 census data, the share of titular groups ranges from 2.1% of Jews in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast’ to 23.4% of Chukchi in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (the 2002 census, Vserossiiskaya perepis' naseleniya 2002 goda, is available at: www.perepis2002.ru/index.html?id=11; as for census data on the ethnic composition of the regions, these can be downloaded from www.perepis2002.ru/index.html?id=17, both sites accessed 12 January 2011).

³⁹Three of the republics are official homelands to more than one ethnic group. These are Kabardino-Balkariya and Karachaevo-Cherkessiya, both of which include two distinct ethnic groups, and Dagestan, which is the home of more than a dozen different ethnic minorities.

⁴⁰Among new republic heads, nine out of 14 were ‘natives’, and among the remaining new appointees, nine out of 41 were ‘natives’.

⁴¹Both men had spent their entire professional careers outside the republics. Ebzeev, a member of the Russian Constitutional Court, had made an unsuccessful attempt to be elected president of Karachaevo-Cherkessiya in 1999 (finishing in sixth place). Evkurov, a general in the airborne troops, had no previous political career.

⁴²That all groups were not satisfied with Evkurov's appointment was demonstrated by an attack on Evkurov's motorcade in 2009, in which the new president was severely injured.

⁴³The incumbent, Leonid Potapov, had grown up in Buryatiya and had ruled the republic since 1990, initially as a first secretary of the Communist Party, later as chair of the regional parliament and from 1994 as president.

⁴⁴Under Putin nine out of 17 republican heads were reappointed (52.9% compared with a reappointment rate of 69.2% for the rest of the governors); under Medvedev four out of 10 were reappointed in the period covered here (40.0% compared with 34.4% for the rest of the governors).

⁴⁵Five more republican heads were replaced during the summer of 2010. The only previously elected republican heads that seem to have weathered the storm are Aleksandr Volkov in Udmurtiya (whose current term expires in 2014), Leonid Markelov in Marii El (whose current term expires in 2015) and Nikolai Merkushkin in Mordoviya (whose current term also expires in 2015).

⁴⁶In the case of Tatarstan, incumbent president Mintimer Shaimiev was, according to Aleksei Makarkin, able to handpick his successor (Makarkin 2010). The new president was Shaimiev's protégé and had served as his prime minister since 1998.

⁴⁷Medvedev had appointed a Karachai to Karchaevo-Cherkessiya, an Ingush to Ingushetiya, a Komi to Komi, a Tatar to Tatarstan and a Dargin to Dagestan. (The Dargins are the second largest ethnic group in Dagestan.)

⁴⁸ Vserossiiskaya perepis' naseleniya 2002 goda, available at: www.perepis2002.ru/index.html?id=11, accessed 12 January 2011.

⁴⁹Zimin replaced Aleksei Lebed’ (1996–2009), who is of mixed Ukrainian and Cossack descent. The first head of the republic, Evgenii Smirnov (1992–1996), was also an ethnic Russian.

⁵⁰‘The elite’ is here defined as members of the federal government, the Federal Assembly (both houses), the Security Council and the governors. The data represent the situation in 1993 and in 2002 (Kryshtanovskaya & White 2003, p. 293).

⁵¹The practice of bringing regional clients to fill leading positions in Moscow was nothing new; previous examples included Brezhnev's ‘Dnepropetrovsk mafia’ and Yel'tsin's ‘Sverdlovsk mafia’.

⁵²According to Nikolai Petrov, ‘some three-fourths’ of the chief federal inspectors came ‘from the military, the MVD, and the special services, including more than one-third from the FSB (many of whom were the chiefs of regional FSB departments)’ (Petrov 2002, pp. 83–84).

⁵³Only one of the appointees, Valerii Potapenko, the new governor of Nenets Autonomous Okrug, officially listed that he had served in the KGB and FSB. There has been considerable discussion on how to define the category of silovik. See for example Kryshtanovskaya and White (2003, 2009), and for dissenting views, Rivera and Rivera (2006) and Renz (2006).

⁵⁴Dmitrii Mezentsev, the new governor of Irkutsk, was decommissioned in 1990, and Dmitrii Dmitrienko in Murmansk, in 1992.

⁵⁵So far however, a governorship seldom has served as a springboard for a federal career. Many former governors have taken up seats in the Federation Council, but rather than a promotion, this is frequently seen as an honourable retirement position. The only governor to have been promoted by Medvedev to the federal government so far is Aleksandr Khloponin, former governor of Krasnoyarsk. In January 2010, he was named presidential plenipotentiary to the new North Caucasus Federal Okrug and simultaneously deputy prime minister in the federal government.

⁵⁶Putin's appointees from this category were Georgii Boos, Aleksandr Karlin, Sergei Mitin and Igor’ Slyunyaev; Medvedev's have been Valerii Gaevskii, Aleksei Gordeev, Aleksandr Kozlov and Aleksandr Misharin.

⁵⁷Of Putin's appointees, Aleksandr Karlin and Vladimir Artyakov; and of Medvedev's, Oleg Khozemyako and Aleksandr Kozlov.

⁵⁸Of Putin's appointees this applies to Aleksandr Berdnikov, Valerii Potapenko and Sergei Vakhrukov; and of Medvedev's, Valerii Gaevskii.

⁵⁹Under Putin, these were Sergei Antuf'ev, Georgii Boos, Arsen Kanokov, Oleg Kovalev, Mikhail Men’ and Sergei Mitin; under Medvedev these were Vyacheslav Shport, Igor’ Esipovskii, Viktor Zimin, Natal'ya Komarova and Mikhail Yurevich.

⁶⁰In this category there were two of Putin's nominees, Oleg Kozhemyako and Igor’ Slyunyaev, and three of Medvedev's, the same Oleg Kozhemyako as well as Dmitrii Mezentsev and Andrei Turchak.

⁶¹Four of Putin's appointees—Mukhu Aliev, Sergei Antuf'ev, Sholban Kara-ool and Sergei Vakhrukov—had enjoyed ex officio representation in the Federation Council due to being elected chair of their respective regional parliaments.

⁶²Examples include the election of a ‘Yukos governor’, Boris Zolotarev, in Evenk Autonomous Okrug and of a ‘Noril'skii Nikel’ governor’, Oleg Budargin, in Taimyr Autonomous Okrug.

⁶³Every year from when the first elections for regional executive heads were held in 1991 up to the introduction of appointed governors in 2005, a majority of the incumbents running for re-election won a new term. The only exceptions were in 1996 and 1998 (Blakkisrud 2005).

⁶⁴These were the governors of Astrakhan, Khabarovsk, Novgorod, Omsk, Samara, Tomsk, Rostov, Yaroslavl, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast’, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and Taimyr Autonomous Okrug, as well as the republican heads of Bashkortostan, Dagestan, Sakha and Tatarstan.

⁶⁵It has been argued that the concession on the term-issue was granted ‘in return for regional abstention from obstructing the implementation of Putin's other federal reforms’ (Hahn 2003, p. 126) and for support for the Kremlin in the 2003–2004 electoral cycle (Sakwa 2004, p. 153).

⁶⁶The legislation had quite different consequences depending on the timing of regional electoral cycles. In 2004, there were 24 governors serving a third term. Of these, 14 were allowed to seek a fourth term due to loopholes in the legislation, including Murtaza Rakhimov, who, if he had been re-elected in 2008, would have been allowed to rule his republic until 2013 (a total of 23 years). It was less advantageous however, for another powerful figure, Yurii Luzhkov, who would have been forced to step down already in 2007 (Blakkisrud 2005).

⁶⁷For the turnover rate from 1991 up to the introduction of appointed governors, see Blakkisrud (2005).

⁶⁸Only six of the Yel'tsin era governors were reappointed during this period, whereas 14 were either asked to tender their resignation or failed to get endorsed for a new term when their term expired.

⁶⁹The sole exception was Aleksandr Volkov of Udmurtiya, who was reappointed by Medvedev in February 2009. One could argue that he does not belong to this cohort, as his presidential term began to run only in 2000. In the capacity of elected chair of the Udmurt government, however, he had served as executive head of the republic since April 1995.

⁷⁰As of May 2010, the remaining members of this cohort were Murtaza Rakhimov (Bashkortostan, in office since 1990), Leonid Polezhaev (Omsk, since 1991), Viktor Kress (Tomsk, since 1991), Yurii Luzhkov (Moscow, since 1992), Evgenii Savchenko (Belgorod, since 1993), Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (Kalmykiya, since 1993), Nikolai Fedorov (Chuvashiya, since 1994), Ravil’ Geniatulin (Chita, now Zabaikalsk Krai, since 1996) and Vyacheslav Pozgalev (Vologda, since 1996). In the course of the summer, Medvedev went on to replace Rakhimov, Fedorov, Ilyumzhinov and Luzhkov.

⁷¹The new President of Dagestan, Magomedsalam Magomedov, is the son of Magomedali Magomedov, who had ruled the republic during the Soviet period and until 2006.

⁷²More than half of the incumbents who had to step down during Putin's second term belonged to this cohort. The low reappointment rate within this group gives rise to the question of whether—as has frequently been claimed (Petrov 2002)—the Kremlin in the early 2000s was able to determine the outcome of gubernatorial elections.

⁷³Ol'ga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White have previously indicated ‘the lack of a pool of eligible candidates’ to explain the mass influx of military personnel into state service (Kryshtanovskaya & White 2003, p. 291).

⁷⁴At the regional level, parties were often merely ‘political machines’ set up by the governor to bring out the vote in regional elections (Hale 2003).

⁷⁵Although Putin extended the tenure of governors formerly associated with the Communist Party (KPRF), these were all incumbents who had won their office in popular elections, not candidates selected by the Kremlin.

⁷⁶One could argue that Medvedev has changed existing practice and thus broken with the Putin tradition. The modus operandi during Putin's presidency was nevertheless one of gradually cutting back on gubernatorial powers. In order to avoid regional reactions, Putin from time to time was willing to compromise: in 2002, he agreed on a liberal interpretation of how to count gubernatorial terms, and after 2005 he was ready to grant the entrenched governors another term. According to this logic, Medvedev's policy brings Putin's reform project to completion.