The puzzle of Putin's gubernatorial appointments

Abstract

This article confronts the puzzles at the heart of Vladimir Putin's decision to eliminate Russia's gubernatorial elections: specifically, the lack of resistance among the regions to Putin's proposal, and the relative ease and speed with which electoral institutions were dismantled. It considers explanations at the central and regional levels, revealing that the Kremlin engaged regional interests and incentives to make the system of appointments seem appealing. After considering competing accounts of Putin's objectives, analysis then focuses on the Kremlin's revival of Soviet-era institutional practices as serving to make the elimination of gubernatorial elections seemingly inevitable while rendering compliance as obligatory.

Notes

¹The term ‘governors’ is used here to refer to the heads of regional executive branches, including the various titles of regional ‘president’, ‘head of government’, ‘government chairman’, ‘head of administration’ and so forth.

² Izvestiya, 13 September 2004; Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 14 September 2004.

³Vladimir Putin, ‘Poslanie Federal'nomu Sobraniyu Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, 25 April 2005, available at: http://president.kremlin.ru, accessed 8 December 2006.

⁴While such extensive changes normally would require about two months of work to produce a draft law, Putin's team produced a bill within two weeks. For some observers this clearly indicated that the Kremlin was already planning to do away with gubernatorial elections prior to Beslan (Izvestiya, 28 September 2004).

⁵For a good selection of Putin's statements regarding the undesirability of appointing governors during 2000 – 02, see: Kommersant, 14 September 2004.

⁶ Izvestiya, 29 September 2004.

⁷ Stenogramma zasedanii Gosdumy, 29 October 2004, pp. 56 – 58.

⁸ Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 14 September 2004.

⁹ Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 15 September 2004.

¹⁰ Kommersant, 14 September 2004; Vremya Novostei, 14 September 2004.

¹¹ Stenogramma zasedanii Gosdumy, 29 October 2004, p. 61. The relevant law was not adopted until 1999.

¹² Stenogramma zasedanii Gosdumy, 29 October 2004, p. 57. Later, Kosopkin would remind the deputies that the State Duma already provided for a similar measure in the law on local self-government in allowing municipal assemblies to appoint an executive manager in place of holding direct elections.

¹³ Kommersant, 18 November 2004.

¹⁴ Gazeta, 15 June 2005, available at: http://www.gazeta.ru/2005/06/15/oa_160758.shtml, accessed 16 June 2005; Kommersant, 16 June 2005; Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 22 December 2005.

¹⁵ Vremya Novostei, 14 September 2004.

¹⁶The following summarises speeches in: Stenogramma zasedanii Gosdumy, 29 October 2004, pp. 65 – 75.

¹⁷It is worth noting in this regard that the removal of Koryak AO's Governor Loginov was quickly followed by moves to initiate the merging of the autonomous okrug with Kamchatka Oblast'. G. Kovalev, ‘Mashkovtsev slivaet sebya sam’, Politkom, 18 March 2005, available at: http://politcom.ru/article.php?id=802, accessed 21 March 2005.

¹⁸ Stenogramma zasedanii Gosdumy, 1 December 2004, pp. 34 – 36.

¹⁹The vote was 358 – 62 with two abstentions. Stenogramma zasedanii Gosdumy, 3 December 2004, pp. 19 – 21.

²⁰ Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 9 December 2004.

²¹Federal'nyi zakon Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 11 dekabrya 2004 g. N 159-FZ O vnesenii izmenenii v Federal'nyi zakon ‘Ob obshchikh printsipakh organizatsii zakonodatel'nykh (predstavitel'nykh) i ispolnitel'nykh organov gosudarstvennoi vlasti sub''ektov Rossiiskoi Federatsii’ i v Federal'nyi zakon ‘Ob osnovnykh garantiyakh izbiratel'nykh prav i prava na uchastie v referendume grazhdan Rossiiskoi Federatsii’. Published in Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 15 December 2004.

²²Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 27 dekabrya 2004 g. N 1603 O poryadke rassmotreniya kandidatur na dolzhnost' vysshego dolzhnostnogo litsa (rukovoditelya vysshego ispolnitel'nogo organa gosudarstvennoi vlasti) sub''ekta Rossiiskoi Federatsii. Published in Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 29 December 2004.

²³Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 29 yunya 2005 g. N 756 O vnesenii izmenenii v Polozhenie o poryadke rassmotreniya kandidatur na dolzhnost' vysshego dolzhnostnogo litsa (rukovoditelya vysshego ispolnitel'nogo organa gosudarstvennoi vlasti) sub''ekta Rossiiskoi Federatsii, utverzhdennoe Ukazom Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 27 dekabrya 2004 g. N 1603. Published in Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 2 July 2004.

²⁴ Izvestiya, 14 September 2004; Riskin (2004, p. 11).

²⁵ Izvestiya, 23 September 2004.

²⁶For their statements regarding Putin's proposals, see Kommersant, 26 October 2004.

²⁷ Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 12 November 2004. Other governors, such as Novgorod's Mikhail Prusak, had raised the possibility of moving to a system of appointments for years, although these tended to be self-serving proposals that never went any further than occasional statements in the press.

²⁸ Kommersant-Vlast', 12 April 2004.

²⁹I am indebted to Henry Hale for pointing this out.

³⁰It is worth mentioning that the table necessarily misses some important nuances regarding the Kremlin's apparent losses. In Kalmykiya's 2002 election, the Presidential Administration split over whether to support entrenched leader Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, resulting in a scandal involving an abortive attempt to replace the republic's chief of police and strike Ilyumzhinov from the ballot (Kommersant-Vlast', 14 October 2002). In Magadan Oblast', the Kremlin was equally in favour of either challenger—one candidate was endorsed by United Russia, while acting governor (and eventual victor) Nikolai Dudov had run Putin's regional campaign headquarters in 2000 (Kommersant-Vlast', 24 February 2003). In Bashkortostan, the Kremlin forced Murtaza Rakhimov into a second round against Sergei Veremeenko. Rakhimov then earned the Kremlin's support in exchange for handing over a controlling stake in the republic's oil industry, after which Veremeenko formally withdrew before the second round though he remained on the ballot (Vedomosti, 23 December 2003). While the Kremlin's favoured candidate lost in the first round of Russia's last gubernatorial election in Nenets AO, the region's new governor, Aleksei Barinov, was backed by Motherland and previously served as Chief Federal Inspector in the region (though he was fired after a falling out with polpred Il'ya Klebanov) (see Russian Regional Report, 2 February 2005).

³¹ Kommersant-Vlast', 24 February 2003.

³²In Altai Krai's 2004 election, there was weak Kremlin support for incumbent Aleksandr Surikov's bid for a third term. Surikov did not seriously campaign and was deprived of a first round victory by only 2%, which were claimed by a dvoinik candidate with the same surname. In the second round, he was left to his own devices and narrowly lost to comedian Mikhail Evdokimov (Kommersant, 6 April 2004).

³³This is not to say that term limits were strictly imposed—on the contrary, the Kremlin made special exception for regional leaders deemed necessary for maintaining local order (Kommersant, 25 January 2001).

³⁴The one exception was Koryak AO Governor Vladimir Loginov, who became the first governor to be sacked owing to the ‘loss of the President's confidence’ (Kommersant, 10 March 2005; Kommersant, 8 April 2005).

³⁵ Izvestiya, 24 March 2005.

³⁶Putin's subsequent decision to appoint Nazdratenko to head the Fisheries Ministry appeared to be a partial retreat, but more likely was aimed at weakening the hand of Mikhail Kasyanov's government (Segodnya, 15 February 2001; Kommersant, 15 February 2001).

³⁷Of course, one of these was the result of the death of Altai Krai's Mikhail Evdokimov in a traffic accident, while Valerii Kokov resigned due to illness in Kabardino-Balkariya. A third change was directly owing to Putin's naming of Tyumen Oblast''s Sergei Sobyanin to head up the Presidential Administration.

³⁸ Kommersant, 3 August 2005; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 3 August 2005.

³⁹ Gazeta, 18 November 2005, available at: http://www.gazeta.ru/2005/11/18/oa_178380.shtml, accessed 18 November 2005.

⁴⁰ Kommersant, 21 September 2005.

⁴¹ Gazeta, 24 October 2005, available at: http://gazeta.ru/2005/10/24/oa_175304.shtml, accessed 24 October 2005.

⁴² Izvestiya, 4 July 2005.

⁴³ Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 4 July 2005. The Ministry of Defence and the Federal Security Service were exempted from this requirement.

⁴⁴ Kommersant, 26 October 2004; Postnova and Sergievskii (2004, p. 4).

⁴⁵ Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 28 October 2004; Parlamentskaya Gazeta, 29 October 2004.

⁴⁶ Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 29 October 2004.

⁴⁷ Stenogramma zasedanii Gosdumy, 29 October 2004, p. 58.

⁴⁸ Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 4 November 2004.

⁴⁹The most visible case involved the attempt by the parliament of Buryatiya to appoint Yurii Skuratov as senator in 2001, which invited the full wrath of the Presidential Administration. Another high profile case concerned the Leningrad Oblast' Duma's nomination of Al'fred Kokh as senator, who withdrew under pressure of investigation by the regional procurator (Kommersant, 14 September 2004).

⁵⁰ Gazeta, 30 March 2005, available at: http://www.gazeta.ru/2005/03/30/oa_152967.shtml, accessed 30 March 2005.

⁵¹ Kommersant, 9 June 2005.

⁵² Kommersant, 21 March 2005; Izvestiya, 1 April 2005; Gazeta, 5 April 2005; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 29 April 2005.

⁵³ IA Regnum, 11 May 2005, available at: http://www.regnum.ru/news/451901.html, accessed 8 December 2006.

⁵⁴ Izvestiya, 6 May 2005.

⁵⁵D. Guseva, ‘Dobrovol'no-prinuditel'naya otstavka’, Politkom, 8 June 2005, available at: http://politcom.ru/article.php?id=427, accessed 6 June 2005.

⁵⁶Though Karlin had previous career experience in Altai Krai, he had not worked in the region since the late 1980s (Kommersant, 18 August 2005; Izvestiya, 12 September 2005).

⁵⁷Khodyrev and Tikhonov both had particularly difficult relations with the Presidential Administration and both were targeted by broad-based political assaults. Arguably, their survival was in question from the moment that the new legislation was signed into law, not from the moment that the regional assemblies sought to exploit it.

⁵⁸Federal'nyi zakon Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 31 dekabrya 2005 g. N 202-FZ O vnesenii izmenenii v stat'yu 18 Federal'nogo zakona ‘Ob obshchikh printsipakh organizatsii zakonodatel'nykh (predstavitel'nykh) i ispolnitel'nykh organov gosudarstvennoi vlasti sub''ektov Rossiiskoi Federatsii’ i v Federal'nyi zakon ‘O politicheskikh partiyakh’.

⁵⁹ Russian Regional Report, 15 December 2005.

⁶⁰Federal'nyi zakon RF ot 07.05.2002 N 47-FZ ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v Federal'nyi zakon ‘Ob obshchikh printsipakh organizatsii zakonodatel'nykh (predstavitel'nykh) i ispolnitel'nykh organov gosudarstvennoi vlasti sub''ektov Rossiiskoi Federatsii’; Federal'nyi zakon RF ot 24.07.2002 N 107-FZ ‘O vnesenii dopolnenii i izmenenii v stat'yu 4 federal'nogo zakona ‘Ob obshchikh printsipakh organizatsii zakonodatel'nykh (predstavitel'nykh) i ispolnitel'nykh organov vlasti sub''ektov Rossiiskoi Federatsii’; Federal'nyi zakon RF ot 04.07.2003 N 95-FZ ‘O vnesenii izmenenii i dopolnenii v Federal'nyi zakon ‘Ob obshchikh printsipakh organizatsii zakonodatel'nykh (predstavitel'nykh) i ispolnitel'nykh organov gosudarstvennoi vlasti sub''ektov Rossiiskoi Federatsii’.

⁶¹The term ‘donor’ region is something of a misnomer, as what is really meant is that federal transfers do not contribute to the regional budget. The regions are considered ‘donors’ insofar as they contribute to the federal budget but do not receive budgetary subsidies or compensation from the Federal Financial Assistance for the Regions fund.

⁶²The few exceptions are no less significant. In Altai Krai, Mikhail Evdokimov was killed in a traffic accident. Among the ‘neglected’ regions, three governors voluntarily stepped aside (Aleksandr Dzasokhov in Severnaya Osetiya, Valerii Kokov in Kabardino-Balkariya, and Vladimir Tikhonov in Ivanovo Oblast'), though whether they jumped out of office or were pushed is debatable. A fourth governor (Oleg Kozhemyako in Koryak AO) was simply sacked by Putin.

⁶³At the start of Putin's first term, 47.2% of Russia's governors had executive experience in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 20.2% in the Komsomol, and 57.3% in Soviet state bodies. The average age in 1999 was 52.3 years (Rigby 2001).

⁶⁴ Vremya Novostei, 30 August 2005; Kommersant-Vlast', 5 September 2005. The Chief Federal Inspectors (CFIs) are directly subordinate to the Presidential Representatives in the Federal Districts. They are appointed in almost every region and are generally responsible for monitoring legislation and exercising oversight (kontrol') of all federal and executive agencies in their region of jurisdiction. The CFIs were increasingly active in gubernatorial elections by the end of 2004, and they are often nominated as an alternate candidate for governor under the present system of appointments.

⁶⁵I am indebted to Robert Orttung for this observation.

⁶⁶There are many examples of this process. Among the most significant are those who have been rotated through the post of Presidential Representative, including: Sergei Kirienko, Il'ya Klebanov, Dmitrii Kozak, Aleksandr Kvashnin, Kamil' Iskhakov, Vladimir Yakovlev, and Valentina Matvienko.

⁶⁷ Kommersant, 15 November 2005.

⁶⁸V. Sotnik, ‘Preemniku Yakusheva nashli novye polnomochiya’, UralPolit, 24 March 2005, available at: http://www.uralpolit.ru/tumen/?art=20083, accessed 19 July 2005; V. Sotnik, ‘Sobyanin usililsya’, UralPolit, 6 June 2005, available at: http://www.uralpolit.ru/tumen/?art=23238, accessed 18 July 2005; Vremya Novostei, 27 December 2005.

⁶⁹ Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 1 June 2005.

⁷⁰ Kommersant-Vlast', 26 September 2005.

⁷¹ Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 21 February 2006; Vremya Novostei, 21 February 2006.

⁷²My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.

⁷³G. Kovalev, ‘Sovmen vse-taki ukhodit?’Politcom, 12 April 2006, available at: http://politcom.ru/article.php?id=2538, accessed 12 April 2006; Kommersant, 14 April 2006.

⁷⁴Regional enlargement [ukrupnenie sub''ektov] has so far seen the merging (accomplished or planned) of: Perm Oblast' and Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug; Krasnodar Krai with Taimyr and Evenk Autonomous Okrugs; Kamchatka Krai with Koryak Autonomous Okrug; Irkutsk Oblast' with Ust'-Orda Buryat Autonomous Okrug; and Chita Oblast' with Agin Buryat Autonomous Okrug. No republics have been merged with neighbouring Russian regions although various proposals have been floated, including the aborted merger of Adygei with Krasnodar Krai.

⁷⁵ Kommersant, 8 September 2006.

⁷⁶ RIA Novosti, 20 November 2006, available at: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061120/55822256.html, accessed 12 December 2006.

⁷⁷ Kommersant, 11 September 2006; Vedomosti, 6 October 2006; Vremya Novostei, 13 October 2006; Kommersant, 1 November 2006.

⁷⁸Many ex-governors have been compensated for their loss of office with seats in the Federation Council, including Mikhail Lapshin, Aleksandr Dzasokhov, Ruslan Aushev, Mikhail Nikolaev, Nikolai Kondratenko, and Leonid Roketskii (Argumenty i Fakty, 23 March 2005).

⁷⁹D. Babich, ‘Russia's Real Shadow Economy: $316 Billion in Bribes’, Russia Profile, 4 July 2006, available at: http://russiaprofile.org/politics/2006/7/4/4000.wbp, accessed 8 December 2006.

⁸⁰ Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 17 March 2005.

⁸¹ Izvestiya, 19 July 2005; Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 31 May 2006; A. Kuprina, ‘Na Alekseya Lebedya zavedeno ugolovnoe delo’, SMI.ru, 25 July 2006, available at: http://www.smi.ru/06/07/25/4658412.html, accessed 8 December 2006.

⁸²This is suggested by the observation that semi-presidentialism has been on the rise in Russia's regions. Kimitaka Matsuzato, personal communication, 4 April 2006.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

J. Paul Goode

The author wishes to thank Henry Hale, Paal Hilde, Robert Orttung and Kenneth Wilson for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article. Any errors and omissions are the author's sole responsibility.