Personnel evolution

In the LDPR, after the September regional elections, personnel changes began both in the leadership of the party and in regional branches. LDPR leader Leonid Slutsky explained them to Kommersant by preparing for a single voting day in 2023, in particular, according to him, it is necessary to achieve “more dense” work with governors. To this end, in some regions, branch coordinators will be replaced by more authoritative politicians, including State Duma deputies. Slutsky needs them because he has “less charisma and influence” than the late leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the expert says.

At the end of October, Leonid Slutsky headed the central office of the Liberal Democratic Party, removing from this position the head of the State Duma Committee on Regional Policy and Local Self-Government, Alexei Didenko. According to the party leader, in this way he “raised the level of leadership of the central apparatus.” Mr. Didenko, who headed the apparatus in May, after the death of party founder Vladimir Zhirinovsky on April 6, became deputy head.

Although the ex-leader also led the apparatus, this decision was sudden for the party members and was received with great surprise by the old cadres, says a Kommersant source in the Liberal Democratic Party. According to him, no complaints were made about the work of Alexei Didenko, and the party was satisfied with the results of the 2022 elections. Leonid Slutsky explained to Kommersant that Mr. Didenko “played the role of a kind of crisis manager in a crucial period after Zhirinovsky’s death.” “The design of a single voting day in 2023, when there will be elections to a large number of legislative assemblies and the City Duma, requires special dedication from the party chairman in working with the regions, and, of course, this is done through the central office, in connection with which I decided to personally head it,” – said the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party.

In September, 27-year-old Vasily Vlasov lost his post as first deputy head of the LDPR faction in the Duma, and was replaced by deputy chairman of the health committee Sergei Leonov. According to the interlocutor in the party, the young deputy simply did not correspond to his position. “He is now engaged in our youth organization, new times – new priorities, everyone should be realized where he succeeds. The first deputy is more of an honorary position than a great responsibility,” Mr. Slutsky explained. It is logical when the new leader changes the team for himself, the interlocutor of Kommersant in the faction commented on the latest personnel decisions.

Changes have also begun in the regions: according to a source in the Liberal Democratic Party, its leader believes that the departments “do not work as they should.” Leonid Slutsky told Kommersant that “interaction with governors and their teams is not ideal in all regions” and where “work with governors is not very close”, the party leadership will help to establish it. Somewhere it will be necessary to make personnel decisions, but they will not be massive, the politician added.

In several regions, the coordinators have already changed – they are headed by State Duma deputies. For example, Sergey Karginov became the head of the branch in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in September. “Now is the time both in the country and in the party when it is necessary to centralize administration. When “at the top is more visible.” The Supreme Council of the Liberal Democratic Party decided to strengthen the regions with the most significant figures from the federal composition … Everything is logical: the party has begun preparations for the elections in 2023 as planned, ”the former coordinator, deputy of the Krasnoyarsk City Council Semyon Sendersky, explained in Telegram. According to him, similar changes should occur in 15 regions. And the branch in St. Petersburg at the end of October was headed by the party leader himself (from the end of January to mid-July, Vasily Vlasov held the position of acting coordinator there).

The regions will be “strengthened” not only by federal figures, but also by deputies of legislative assemblies, “solid people with authority who will be properly perceived by governors to solve problems on the regional agenda,” Leonid Slutsky told Kommersant. Thus, the branch in Chechnya, where the Liberal Democratic Party had not previously been represented at all, was headed by the president of the republic’s Academy of Sciences, Dzhambulat Umarov.

When the coordinator is a status person, it is easier to “raise people’s issues to the authorities,” explains another source in the faction. According to him, under Vladimir Zhirinovsky there was an unspoken rule that deputies should not head departments, “giving way to the young” and motivating them to climb the career ladder, but this did not always work out, because their term of office is three years, and the electoral cycle is five years. To convey the problems to the regional authorities, it was necessary to act through the Duma deputies, and this is a longer way, the source adds. Another source in the party emphasizes that the LDPR is an opposition party, so work with the authorities was built only where there are governors from the LDPR, in Smolensk, Khabarovsk, and before the change of the head of the region, in Vladimir.

In the regions, they do not see much difference in work under the new leader, with the exception of personnel changes. “The branch was quite loyal even before that,” says a source in the Saratov LDPR. “Coordinator Dmitry Pyanykh is loyal to State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, largely due to this he became a State Duma deputy in 2020 (he was not re-elected to the eighth convocation.— “b”), replacing Mikhail Degtyarev there (appointed by the Khabarovsk governor.— “b”)”. The Yakut coordinator Gavril Parakhin admits that there are no special changes in interaction with the head of the region Aisen Nikolaev either: regular meetings with him took place before. But a source in the Crimean branch, on the contrary, is waiting for a “total reset”: after the death of Mr. Zhirinovsky, a conflict arose there over the candidacy of the coordinator, which is why several politicians left the branch.

In addition to changing personnel, Leonid Slutsky intends to spend less money on campaign billboards, shifting the focus to active work with residents and concrete assistance to them, Kommersant’s interlocutors in the party told Kommersant. “Billboards, buses, campaign trains are our tradition, for each region we will make an informed decision on how many of them will be needed. We don’t need to throw billboards at the cities, there is no direct proportionality between their number and the voting results,” the party leader explains. He also admits that, following the results of the 2023 elections, some statutory requirements may be changed at the congress, and the program will change over time. Mr. Slutsky intends to do this “consistently and collegially.” “We are not going to carry out revolutions, the LDPR was and remains the party of Zhirinovsky,” the politician summed up.

The LDPR has previously cooperated with regional authorities, since the existence of the party depends on following informal agreements, political analyst Alexei Makarkin notes. But if Vladimir Zhirinovsky solved specific issues in the regions, then the role of Leonid Slutsky is different: he is also loyal, but he is not a dominant figure, he has less charisma and apparatus influence, so he connects federal parliamentarians to work in the regions, the expert argues. The essence of “interaction with the governors”, in his opinion, is that the parties do not interfere and it is considered as a partner. In general, the LDPR remains afloat, since there are few party brands in the country, the political scientist concludes.

Maria Makutina, corset “Kommersant”