#9 - JRL 8386 - JRL Home
EXPERTS ON NUANCES OF GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION REFORM

MOSCOW, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - "Russian regional authorities will be formed like the federal government is formed," Vladislav Surkov, deputy chief of the Kremlin staff and a presidential aide, said yesterday. Local legislatures will have two attempts to approve gubernatorial candidates nominated by the president. In the event a legislature does not approve the president's candidate, the president can appoint an acting governor and the legislature can be dissolved. The president will also have the right to dismiss governors elected under the new arrangements, reported Vremya Novostei. The president can dismiss a governor either because of a request by the legislature or at his own discretion, if the governor in question did not perform his duties properly or has lost the president's confidence.

Today, a governor can be dismissed by a court ruling when he was charged with a grave crime. Under the new system, governors will be much more vulnerable. However, experts doubt that the grounds for dismissing regional leaders as voiced by Surkov are unbiased.

According to the personnel director at a large Russian company, "the loss of confidence" formula stipulated in the Labor Code only allows for the dismissal of one category of employees, i.e., those who deal with "monetary and other valuables," such as cashiers and warehouse managers.

"The loss of the president's confidence is an absolutely subjective criterion for dismissing a governor," said Yuly Nisnevich, a political science professor at Moscow's Friendship University. "If the assessment procedure and criteria are not set out more clearly, they may indicate 'he fell out of president's favor' instead of 'lost his confidence' in a dismissal decree," joked Alexander Shmelev, executive director of the Moscow Bureau of Political Law.

Vague wordings for governors' dismissal are designed to give the president almost unlimited power to reshuffle gubernatorial staff, said Rostislav Turovsky from the Center for Political Technologies. The governors will now have to show absolute loyalty to the president, and they will not be able to "flirt with, for example, financial and industrial groups," he said.

Experts believe the Kremlin extended gubernatorial terms almost indefinitely. Incumbent governors cannot remain in office for longer than two consecutive terms (up to 5 years each ). The relevant draft law does not stipulate any gubernatorial term limits whatsoever. The Kremlin admits President Putin can nominate those who served two or even three gubernatorial terms already to run a republic or a province.