At least 13 senators will leave the Federation Council in autumn

At least 13 senators will leave the Federation Council (SF) after the regional elections, which will be held on September 10. They did not get into the top three candidates nominated by candidates for governors, or they do not go to the elections to the regional parliament.

Each of the regions of Russia in the Federation Council is represented by two senators – from the legislative and executive authorities. A candidate for the head of the subject, when submitting documents to the election commission, presents a trio of candidates for senators, one of whom he delegates to the Federation Council if he is elected in the elections.

On a single voting day in September, residents of 21 regions of the Russian Federation will have to choose the head of their subject, 20 deputies of legislative assemblies. In five more regions, including four new ones – the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, the governor will be appointed through a vote in parliament.

Legislative assemblies choose a future representative in the upper house of parliament after elections from among their members. Taking into account the fact that legislative assemblies in Zaporozhye and Kherson regions will be formed only after the elections (subsequently, one senator will be delegated from them to the Federation Council), in total, potentially after September 10, 44 members of the Federation Council may be replaced.

But it is already known that from September 13 people will leave the Federation Council, eight of whom represent governors:

■ Valery Vasiliev (delegated by the head of the Ivanovo region) – senator since 2011,

■ Elena Mizulina (head of the Omsk region) – senator since 2015,

■ Vladimir Krugly (head of the Oryol region) – senator since 2014,

■ Nina Kulikovskikh (head of the Smolensk region) – senator since 2020,

■ Irina Kozhanova (Smolensk Regional Duma) – senator since 2021,

■ Svetlana Goryacheva (Head of the Primorsky Territory) – Senator since 2014,

■ Elena Bibikova (head of the Pskov region) – senator since 2014,

■ Olga Khokhlova (legislative assembly of the Vladimir region) – senator since 2018,

■ Dmitry Kuzmin (legislative assembly of the Kemerovo region) – senator since 2018,

■ Irek Yalalov (State Assembly of Bashkiria) – senator since 2018,

■ Alexei Mayorov (Parliament of Kalmykia) – senator since 2011,

■ Rimma Galushina (legislative assembly of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug) – senator since 2018,

■ Alexander Karlin (head of the Altai Territory) – senator since 2018.

The pool of senators from the Smolensk region will be completely updated.

Vasily Anokhin, ex-director of the regional development department of the Russian government, who was appointed interim governor on March 17, did not include Nina Kulikovskikh, the current representative of the regional administration, in the top three candidates for members of the Federation Council. The acting head of the region will choose a senator from the following candidates: rector of Smolensk State University Mikhail Artemenkov, director of the Lyceum named after Cyril and Methodius Olga Ivanova and deputy governor of the Smolensk region Ruslan Smashnev.

And the representative of the Smolensk Regional Duma in the upper house of parliament, Irina Kozhanova (LDPR), decided not to participate in the elections for the next convocation. She herself reported this to Vedomosti.

The powers of Elena Mizulina, a former State Duma deputy from Yabloko and later A Just Russia, who in recent years was a senator from the Omsk Region, will not be extended. Acting Governor of the Omsk Region Vitaly Khotsenko preferred to bet “on Omsk people, on those who were born and grew up in the region.” Mizulina is from Buya, Kostroma region, she graduated from the law faculty of Yaroslavl State University.

As RBC reported, the main candidate is the deputy head of the federal territory “Sirius” Ivan Evstifeev, included in the top three candidates along with the head physician of the Clinical Medical and Surgical Center of the Ministry of Health of the Omsk Region Vadim Berezhny and English teacher of secondary school No. 28 Yulia Chekhlova.

The post of senator from the government of the Ivanovo region in the event of re-election as governor of Stanislav Voskresensky may be taken by the former head of the Federal Customs Service Vladimir Bulavin (he left the post in February 2023). The head of the region made him an appropriate proposal. Two more candidates are Alexander Gusakovsky (representative of the Ivanovo Regional Duma in the Federation Council) and Svetlana Protasevich, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the region.

The current representative of the executive power of the Ivanovo region, Valery Vasilyev, has been sitting in the Federation Council since 2011, where he was first delegated by Mikhail Men, who at that time held the post of governor. The current senator from the head of the Altai Territory Viktor Tomenko, ex-governor Alexander Karlin, who was appointed to this post in 2018 after 13 years of ruling the region, was not among the three candidates for members of the Federation Council of the head of the region Viktor Tomenko, as well as a representative of the executive power of the Oryol region , doctor Vladimir Krugly is on the list of communist governor Andrey Klychkov. Krugly has represented the government of the Oryol region in the Federation Council since 2014.

As a result, for example, the top three candidates included the representative of the government and the governor of the Altai Territory in the local legislative assembly, Natalia Kuvshinova, State Duma deputy Ivan Loor, and chairman of the Public Chamber of the region, Yuri Shamkov. Klychkov proposed the head of the Defenders of the Fatherland branch in the region, Olga Anisimova, the first vice-governor of the region, Vadim Sokolov, and the director of the Spasskoye-Lutovinovo museum-reserve, Sergey Stupin, for the post of candidates for the Federation Council from the executive power of the Oryol region.

In addition, by the end of the summer, a new senator to replace Igor Panchenko, who died on July 27, will be appointed by the Tula Regional Duma. No decision has been made yet, says Vedomosti’s interlocutor close to the regional leadership.

Vyacheslav Morozov, the head of the regional department of the Federal Tax Service, Vyacheslav Morozov, will most likely be appointed as the new senator from the Ryazan Regional Duma instead of Igor Morozov, who resigned in November 2022, Vedomosti reported on June 12. Now he is participating in the by-elections of the deputy of the regional parliament in the district instead of Stanislav Podol, who resigned after the guilty verdict.

Svetlana Goryacheva, who was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, and after that a deputy of the State Duma of the II, III, IV, V and VI convocations (listed in the Communist Party and A Just Russia factions), will also leave the Federation Council. Instead, the head of Primorye Oleg Kozhemyako proposed among the candidates for the Federation Council the speaker of the legislative assembly Alexander Rolik, the deputy of the regional parliament Alexander Zakharov and the head of the government of the region Vera Shcherbina.

President of the Center for Regional Policy Development Ilya Grashchenkov notes that “quite a lot of senators” are leaving this fall. “Most of the old elites already do not fit well into the reality that the special operation and state policy are now painting, or, conversely, people like Mizulina may find themselves in more active work than the one that the Federation Council implies,” he says.

Rotation in the upper house of parliament this year is facilitated by the fact that among the current senators there are few really powerful people with protected positions, political analyst Rostislav Turovsky said. “Replacements of governors, the activity of the elites, the complete exhaustion of the potential of old-time senators and other similar factors are always present in the game. You can change almost everyone – for this, the Kremlin or the governor must have a more influential contender for the place, ”he told Vedomosti.

Also, as Vedomosti wrote on May 17, the law introduced the right of regional authorities (governors and legislative assemblies) to recall members of the Federation Council delegated by them to Moscow. The relevant submission may be submitted to the Federation Council one year after the appointment of the senator (but no later than three months before the end of his term of office).

In this case, the principle of two keys remains: the Federation Council must decide whether to approve the submission of recalling a senator. And if Moscow does not agree with the initiative of the region, then the initiative can be put forward again only after six months.