Quick, how are these men related? And no, they're not being casted for the sequel to 'Step Brothers.' (photos courtesy of: lenta.ru and mvestnik.ru)
Sergey Sobyanin’s appointment to succeed Yuri Luzhkov as Moscow’s mayor is merely the latest manifestation of the latest old fad sweeping Russian regional politics. Sobyanin, basically a political non-entity whose previous job was as Putin’s chief of staff, was appointed for one main reason, it seems; he is a manager, not a politician. This means that not only is he legally dependent on maintaining the confidence of the Kremlin leadership – leaders of Russian regions are appointed and removed by presidential decree – but politically as well. Sobyanin’s case is not unique as appointing governors politically and legally dependent on the center has been going on since the 2004 reforms that eliminated direct elections for regional governors.
Sobyanin’s apparent greatest strength is, as Vedomosti so artfully put it, that he is a ‘soldier-bureaucrat.’ What does this mean, pray tell? Well, for example, Sobyanin in 2008 – shortly after moving across town to lead the prime-ministerial administration – headed up the effort to draw a road map for the next 4 years for 42 government ministries and departments, an effort that took 2 months. Important? Probably. Inspiring for the masses? Not really. Yet it is exactly this quality that makes Sobyanin attractive for the powers that be.
Moreover, Sobyanin seems almost assured to remain under Putin and the Kremlin’s control in a way that was never possible with Luzhkov, who was in office almost a full decade before Putin became president. Sobyanin, like Medvedev, will rely on Putin’s backing him to run the city. On the one hand, he does not necessarily need a huge amount of personal political gravitas to run the ship as long as Putin is perceived as the man behind him.
On the other, however, this means his personal power is hamstringed by the need not to stray too far from the Kremlin line. Thus, the threat of removal does not even need to be exercised to keep things on the regular so long as everyone – Sergey Semyonovich (Sobyanin – BL) in particular – understands that his ability to rule Moscow is dependent on Putin’s support. That figurative letter of recommendation in his pocket from the main boss will work in his favor in the beginning – as it did with Medvedev – but ultimately his reliance on it will serve as an anchor on any hopes of his becoming a truly independent political figure.
This pattern has been repeated in regions further afield. A prime example is Murmanskaya Oblast’ governor Dmitry Dmitrienko, who was appointed by Medvedev in March 2009. His predecessor Yuri Yevdokimov, governor of the region from 1997 to 2009, basically signed his own pink slip by opposing United Russia’s candidate in the 2009 Murmansk mayoral race. Dmitrienko’s previous experience included working in the Krasnoyarsky Krai government and as deputy head of the federal fishing agency. His real strengths – from the Kremlin’s point of view – are his status as a Petersburger and his connections, according to experts quoted in a gazeta.ru article, to the siloviki (the military and security ministry clique in the Kremlin) stemming from his career in the Soviet Navy. That he had never really worked in Murmansk politics, thus not being able to develop a local power base, could be viewed as a positive, at least from the standpoint of maintaining political dependence on the center.
If relying on political leverage doesn’t work, than holding the threat of dismissal and subsequent criminal prosecution would probably do the trick. Nikolai Petrov pointed this out in a Jan. 14 editorial in the St. Petersburg Times, using Primorsky Krai governor Sergey Dar’kin as the prime example of the Sword of Damocles approach. Dar’kin, whose house was searched in 2008 in the course of an investigation into illegal privatization of government real estate, was re-appointed by Medvedev in 2010. Additionally, the former “Primor’e” bank chairman raised some eyebrows when his mandated 2008 asset declaration showed no housing, no cars and an income 70 times less than his wife’s 145 million rubles To some, this may have seemed like the perfect excuse to remove him from his seat. To the Kremlin, it probably also seems like the perfect excuse to remove him as well, but an excuse better used as leverage to ensure the governor of an incredibly important entry point for Far East imports toes the Kremlin line.
It is in these informal methods that, as tools for assuring subservience to federal structures, are just as strong and influential the obvious trump card of presidential decree and removal. The existence of alternate loci of power, particularly regionally, is anathema to Putin, as is obvious to any observer of Russian politics over the last 10 years. Installing governors or mayors or presidents with built-in dependencies on Putin and the center moves this agenda further than it probably could if it relied solely on the slightly more messy presidential removal decree. Sobyanin is just the latest example of this trend
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