Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 18 – Rosbalt commentator
Ivan Preobrazhensky says that “the regional authorities are not coping with
disorders and that as a result, the Kremlin is being forced to establish one
crisis team after another, while Sergey Aksyonov of Svobodnaya pressa argues that this has reduced Vladimir Putin to
being “a fireman” rather than a leader.
According to Preoobrazhensky, the
rising tide of protests in the provinces is forcing Moscow “again and again” to
interfere in order to impose order,” sometimes overruling the local leaders and
sometimes, as in Ingushetia, providing them with the resources and authorization
to use force to maintain control (rosbalt.ru/russia/2019/05/17/1781471.html).
The commentator
says that the Kremlin has “a whole staff” devoted to supervising what is going
on in Ingushetia. Anton Vayno, the head of the Presidential Administration, has
held meetings about the trash protests and the Arkhangelsk government’s response. And Putin himself has been forced to respond
to what is happening in Yekaterinburg.
Thus, the problems in the regions are
consuming the Kremlin and preventing it from focusing on larger issues, a
development that Aksyonov and the experts he spoke with say is producing “a
paralysis of power” in which Putin has been transformed into “a political
fireman” dealing with tiny questions rather than real issues (svpressa.ru/society/article/232980/).
Dmitry Zhuravlyev, head of the
Moscow Institute of Regional Problems, says that “local officials very often
are choosing ‘inaction’” and that has forced the Kremlin to intervene. Doing
nothing often is the safest course for these officials, but if problems get out
of hand, they need a push to do something and only Putin can provide that.
Such behavior by regional heads, he
continues, reflects the fact that they are bureaucrats rather than politicians.
In Russia today, “there is only one politician, President Putin.” He acts as a
politician does figuring out how to solve a problem; the regional heads
typically try to do as little as possible and to avoid attracting negative
attention.
Unfortunately, Zhuravlyev says, this
means that Putin has to get involved in things that should be dealt with by
local people even below the level of governors.
It is impressive that “to our president has the strength and time to do
this,” the Moscow analyst continues in an ironic fashion.
Putin, of course, didn’t create this
situation. It existed under Yeltsin and Gorbachev as well. Until and unless they intervened, nothing
happened to change local trajectories. But neither they nor he can be everywhere or respond
to everything and so problems keep cropping up that only the head of the country
can cope with.
Political analyst Aleksey Makarkin
agrees, but he argues that this arrangement has both pluses and minuses. The
big plus is that when a decision is made, it can be taken and implemented
quickly because the president has the power. But the biggest minus is that everyone
else tries to avoid taking any decision, knowing that Putin will be the one to
decide.
Or in some cases, local leaders try
to decide only to become victim of charges of adventurism or worse. That keeps ever more of them from doing what
they need to do and forces Putin to spend more and more time doing jobs he
should not have to be working at, Makarkin says.
Unfortunately, this system isn’t
going to change soon. To change would require strengthening institutions at all
levels, and those managing the 2024 transition see that as a threat to a quiet
shift in political arrangements at the top. But equally unfortunately, they do
not see that without such institutions, the system will be in trouble as well,
the Moscow analyst concludes.
No comments:
Post a Comment