Spring is red with resignations – Newspaper Kommersant No. 49 (7494) of 03/23/2023

The two resignations of governors last week will most likely not be the last on the eve of the 2023 regional elections, Kommersant sources close to the presidential administration (AP) say. Among the possible retirees, in addition to the Krasnoyarsk leader Alexander Uss and the head of Khakassia Valentin Konovalov, Kommersant’s interlocutors also name the Oryol governor Andrei Klychkov. Kommersant’s sources have no unequivocal confidence in the departure of any of them, but the presidential campaign starting in December is pushing to continue the rotation of the Presidential Administration.

Until the end of March, new resignations of governors may take place, three Kommersant sources close to the Presidential Administration say. However, the last word in such decisions traditionally remains with the president, and the Kremlin’s domestic political bloc only gives him its recommendations.

Recall that last week the heads of the two regions changed. Kommersant sources have long named Roman Kopin (Chukotka) among the potential retirees, explaining that he himself wanted to leave. In addition, this year in Chukotka, in any case, gubernatorial elections were planned, and the Presidential Administration, considering the possibility of rotation, pays attention to such regions in the first place. The place of Roman Kopin was taken by the now former First Deputy Prime Minister of the LPR Vladislav Kuznetsov.

The replacement of LDPR member Alexei Ostrovsky (Smolensk region) with Vasily Anokhin, an employee of the government apparatus of the Russian Federation, was less expected. The term of office of the governor expired only in 2025, there were no rumors that they were dissatisfied with him or that he himself would like to change his job. In addition, Mr. Ostrovsky was appointed to this post by the president in 2012 under the so-called party quota, within which the parties of the parliamentary opposition, in agreement with the Kremlin, receive their representatives in the governor’s corps. Therefore, in 2015, when Aleksei Ostrovsky went to the first direct elections, United Russia did not put forward a candidate against him. True, the federal official assures that the “quota” for Mr. Ostrovsky was not with the Liberal Democratic Party, but with the late Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and the new leader of the party, Leonid Slutsky, has a different attitude towards Alexei Ostrovsky.

Kommersant’s interlocutors name several governors among the new likely retirees. So, for a long time there has been talk about the possible departure of the head of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Alexander Uss: among the reasons, Kommersant’s sources name problems with the rating in the first place. Vedomosti previously wrote about the likely resignation of Mr. Uss. However, none of Kommersant’s sources is ready to unequivocally state that the decision to resign the Krasnoyarsk leader has already been made, and one of the interlocutors, on the contrary, claims that Alexander Uss has every chance to remain in his position.

For a long time, Kommersant’s sources predicted the resignation of the head of Khakassia, Valentin Konovalov (KPRF), who took this post in 2018 as a result of an unexpected victory over the then head of the republic, Viktor Zimin. But now some interlocutors of Kommersant consider another scenario very likely: competitive elections will be held in Khakassia, in which the communist Konovalov will compete with the State Duma deputy from United Russia Sergei Sokol (now Mr. Sokol is participating in a special military operation as a volunteer).

Finally, two other well-informed Kommersant sources name Andrei Klychkov, the head of the Oryol region, as another possible candidate for “departure”. He is a member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and, like Mr. Ostrovsky, was appointed to this post in 2017 in agreement with the Kremlin. However, the governor, according to one of Kommersant’s interlocutors, is dissatisfied in the government. At the same time, the leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation does not see reasons for the resignation of a comrade-in-arms. According to the first deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Yuri Afonin, Mr. Klychkov’s team is working effectively both in socio-economic terms, and in political terms, and in terms of helping Donbass and supporting the special operation. “As far as I know, he is doing well and with a personal rating. Therefore, I don’t see any objective reasons for resigning,” the communist says.

In the event of his resignation, Mr. Klychkov will become the second opposition governor to lose his post this year, which he received earlier under the “party quota”. But now, as Kommersant’s sources say, the very concept of a quota is not perceived so unambiguously. “Each governor is the result of individual agreements. And they also need to meet KPIs. Yes, there is an opinion that the parliamentary opposition should be represented in the governor’s corps. But if they have at least one governor each, then they are represented, ”a Kommersant interlocutor close to the Presidential Administration explains the current logic. Recall that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, in addition to Messrs. Klychkov and Konovalov, has a third governor – the head of the Ulyanovsk region Alexei Russkikh, and the liberal democrat Mikhail Degtyarev heads the Khabarovsk Territory.

Another interlocutor of Kommersant believes that this year the Kremlin is especially careful about the rotation of the gubernatorial corps in connection with the upcoming presidential elections in 2024 (the campaign will officially start in December 2023). This, in particular, explains the resignation of Mr. Ostrovsky, sources say: according to their data, Vladimir Putin’s ratings in the Smolensk region began to show a negative trend.

Andrey Vinokurov