Paul Goble
Staunton,
October 3 – Both the weakening of public support for many of its candidates and
the loss of several of them have been widely expected to produce changes in the
Kremlin’s choice of governors away from those who simply follow the orders of
the center toward those with experience in or at least a talent for more public
politics.
But
a new study by the Agency for Political and Economic Communications (APEC)
concludes that these election results still have not had any significant impact
on the Kremlin’s choices or on the ranking of governors as compiled by the agency,
the Nakanune news service reports (nakanune.ru/articles/114407/).
“Despite a number of predictions,” APEC
says, “the Kremlin still has not made a key bet on people with experience in
public policy” and who thus might be expected to do better in more competitive
elections and hasn’t rejected its recent approach of appointing outsiders as
governors, people who might be expected from the outset to be less popular than
locals.
“Among the new appointees, as
before, a significant share consists of people who have succeeded in working in
federal structures (Kazbek Kokov in Kabardino-Balkaria, Sergey Morozov in
Astrakhan Oblast, and Oleg Kozhemakov who has become provision head of
Primorsky Kray),” the ranking agency says.
This suggests, APEC concludes, that
the center feels confident that is has no need to change “the basic principles
of its cadres policy.” Nakanune for its
part asked its readers for their reaction: “A majority of them said that the
Presidential Administration most likely did not notice threats” to the center
as a result of the regional voting.
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