No Senior Russian Official Should be Allowed to Hold Any Office for More than Eight Years, Yaroshenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 7 – Aleksey Yaroshenko, a prominent analyst of Russian regional affairs, says that his country must adopt a law that would ban officials from remaining in senior positions for more than eight years, a step that would reduce corruption and give the state apparatus more flexibility.

            This call for a radical form of term limits, he argued, will not only do that but will encourage younger people who will then know that they will have greater chances at advancement rather than being held back by their seniors who remain in place for years (absatz.media/news/170812-v-rossii-predlozhili-zapretit-chinovnikam-zanimat-post-dolshe-vosmi-let).

            But the main advantage, Yaroshenko says, is that it will ensure “the rotation of personnel” and thus ensure that over time there will be “more different people with different opinions and approaches,” something that can only make the implementation of central policies more effective.

            There is virtually no chance that his proposal will even be considered seriously let alone adopted in Putin’s Russia: too many heads would have to roll and there would be enormous chaos in both the political system and the bureaucracy. But the fact that this idea has now been proposed indicates how angry some Russians are about officials remaining in office for so long.

            Indeed, Yaroshenko’s words are a way of talking about the departure of Putin and his entourage from power in a way that is less likely to lead to persecution or prosecution and represent yet another example of the slippage of public support for the Kremlin leader, however much the author of this idea might dissent from that possibility.