The series of resignations of Russian governors continues. The rotation has already affected Nikolai Merkushkin (Samara Region), Valery Shantsev (Nizhny Novgorod Region), Ramazan Abdulatipov (Republic of Dagestan), Igor Kashin (Nenets Autonomous Okrug), as well as Viktor Tolokonsky (Krasnoyarsk Territory). At the beginning of the week, it became known about a new candidate for “expulsion”: the governor of the Oryol region, Vadim Potomsky, is preparing to leave his post. Novaya Gazeta remembered why the region remembered him.
Communist Vadim Potomsky headed the Oryol region in 2014. In February, he was appointed acting governor when United Russia member Alexander Kozlov left his post due to the expiration of his term of office. Potomsky later won the election with a stunning 89%. Despite the traditional popularity of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the Oryol region, with the advent of Potomsky, the communists began to lose their positions in the region, and already in 2015 they received only four mandates in the Orel City Council, although before that they occupied half the seats. The communists were also defeated in the regional council elections in 2016.
Potomsky's own popularity also steadily declined. In the June ranking of governors, he took first place from the end. To be fair, we note that a high place in the ranking of regional heads does not guarantee immunity. The first among equals, Valery Shantsev, was also dismissed.
The results of Vadim Potomsky's business in the Oryol region are disappointing. Last year alone, the region’s debt increased by 3 billion rubles, and debts wages amounted to 66 million. Novaya Gazeta’s interlocutors unanimously note that Potomsky is remembered for its unfulfilled promises: the oil refinery was never completed, the airport was not restored, and a special economic zone was not created. In addition, the Orleks and Dormash enterprises were closed.
One can also highlight Potomsky’s special “achievement” - a historical one - the installation of the country’s first monument to Ivan the Terrible. The appearance of the monument to Ivan the Terrible, whose rule was accompanied by repressions, met with serious resistance from civil society. In the process of fighting for the monument, the Oryol governor “glorified” himself once again by expressing an unusual version about the reasons for the death of the son of Ivan the Terrible. According to Potomsky, the tsar did not kill his son, but simply failed to help his sick son on the way from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The head of the Oryol region apparently forgot that St. Petersburg was founded a hundred years later. Despite everything, the monument was erected at a ceremony in the presence of Potomsky himself, publicist Alexander Prokhanov and leader of the Night Wolves Alexander Zaldostanov.
Another scandal arose in the region after parents of several schools at once stated that educational institutions Portraits of the governor appeared at the “Symbols of the Oryol Region” stands. They were later removed.
Orel City Council deputies Sergei Elesin and Igor Konovalov assure that residents of the region have been waiting for Potomsky’s resignation for a long time.
“99.9% of the Oryol region will react positively to his resignation. Everyone perceives him extremely negatively. Potomsky doesn’t care, he was governor, did nothing and left, but we live here,” says Konovalov.
Critics of Vadim Potomsky hope that the Oryol region, in the logic of the current shifts, will be headed not by a “Varangian”, but by one of the locals.
As Novaya Gazeta learned, three candidates are being considered to replace Potomsky: State Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Yuri Afonin, head of the operational department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Anatoly Yakunin and former senator from the Oryol region Pavel Merkulov. Apart from Afonin, who was born in Tula, the rest of the candidates are from the Oryol region.
The final decision on Potomsky has not been made, and he is not the only candidate for removal from the chair. In all likelihood, the head of the Omsk region, Viktor Nazarov, and the head of Komi, Sergei Gaplikov, will say goodbye to their posts within a week.
President Vladimir Putin appointed the head of the Communist Party faction in the Moscow City Duma, Secretary of the Central Committee Andrei Klychkov, as acting governor of the Oryol region. He replaced the communist Vadim Potomsky, who did not complete his first term, who became deputy presidential envoy in the Central federal district(CFD) on environmental issues. For the Oryol region, Mr. Klychkov will be the third “Varangian” governor in a row. The transfer of a metropolitan politician to the region changes the situation in the Moscow mayoral elections: earlier Andrei Klychkov had already announced his upcoming nomination in 2018. Temporarily, he can be considered to have dropped out of the struggle for leadership in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
Kommersant reported on the upcoming resignation of Vadim Potomsky on October 2. The candidates were the deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, State Duma deputy Yuri Afonin and a native of the Oryol region, Lieutenant General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Anatoly Yakunin. Yesterday, a message appeared on the Kremlin website about a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Andrei Klychkov, but the text of the transcript was not provided. In the Oryol region he was born and began his political career leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov, and for him, as they say in the party, it is important to maintain influence on the region. “I’m not emigrating and I don’t regard this as exile, it’s 300 km to Orel,” Andrei Klychkov told Kommersant. “On the one hand, this is a challenge that needs to be dealt with: we need to justify the trust of the party and the country’s leadership.”
The resignation of Vadim Potomsky was long awaited in the region. “This was not news for us,” Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Budarin told Kommersant. “Some things worked out partially, some things didn’t work out at all.” According to him, “historically, everyone in Orel is somewhat related to each other, and this sometimes made work difficult.” A native of Vsevolozhsk, Leningrad region, Vadim Potomsky headed the Oryol region in February 2014. That year, one of the largest businessmen in the region, Vitaly Rybakov, who became the governor’s main opponent, was not allowed to participate in the elections.
During the reign of Mr. Potomsky, several major officials immediately became involved in criminal cases, one of them, Sergei Kochergin (accused of abuse of power and fraud), even stated in court that he acted on the orders of the governor. The once strong Oryol branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation sharply lost ground and found itself on the verge of a split. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation lost the post of mayor of Oryol, and out of half the mandates in the city council of the regional capital, it only had three mandates left. The governor invited high-ranking officials to the region several times, but in 2016, with Vadim Potomsky, the monument to Tsar Ivan the Terrible was unveiled only by the biker Surgeon and publicist Alexander Prokhanov. A Kommersant source in the regional administration complained that in honor of the resignation, “it will be impossible to light fireworks - it’s raining and snowing in Orel.”
Vitaly Rybakov is happy that “the darkness that covered the Oryol region has gone away”: “Klychkov needs to find compromises for normal management.” The local United Russia party does not know whether they will nominate a candidate: in 2014, the appointed interim Vadim Potomsky had no United Russia opponents. “When we found out that it was Klychkov, the question immediately arose: who is he? The third alien in a row, and even without a team. Are we being passed down by inheritance?” - a local businessman was indignant in a conversation with Kommersant. “We’ll probably start preparing a historical trilogy here: Kozlovschina (named after Vadim Potomsky’s predecessor, Alexander Kozlov, who came from Moscow.- “Kommersant”), posterity and Klychkovism,” said another local politician. Working in the region is “a challenge for Klychkov,” says political scientist Vladimir Slatinov: “Without serious managerial experience, he comes to a deeply depressed region with a deliberately hostile local elite. At the same time, he will need to create a general coalition specifically from Oryol in order to achieve success.”
Vadim Potomsky left Mr. Klychkov a surprise: on his initiative, the regional council in September adopted amendments to regional legislation limiting mass actions in almost the entire regional center. These changes were criticized by regional deputies from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, but the changes have not yet come into force - Mr. Potomsky did not have time to sign them. “Abandoning this law is the first chance for Klychkov to be liked right away,” Vladimir Slatinov is sure.
Kommersant’s interlocutor in the regional leadership suggested transferring Mr. Potomsky to the embassy “to be considered a promotion.” Let us note that the presidential envoy to the Central Federal District, Alexander Beglov, has very “status” subordinates. His deputy, Irina Potekhina, from 2005 to 2012 was executive vice president and member of the board of AFK Sistema Vladimir Yevtushenkov, and another deputy, Murat Zyazikov, headed Ingushetia from 2002 to 2008, and was an adviser to the president from 2008 to 2012. The former head of the Federal Migration Service (liquidated in April 2016, powers transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs) Konstantin Romodanovsky holds the post of assistant plenipotentiary representative. And another assistant - Vladimir Kalanda - was the first deputy head of the Federal Service for Drug Control (the service headed by Viktor Ivanov was liquidated on October 1, 2017, powers were transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs) and is the husband of the top manager of the Transneft company Larisa Kalanda (occupies post from November 2016). Before that, she worked for ten years at Rosneft, from December 2012 she was the state secretary and vice president of the company, and in July 2015 she headed the office of the company’s chief executive officer, Igor Sechin.
Parcel from Moscow
According to a Kommersant source in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the decision on the candidate was made within the last three days. “The reasoning for such cases was standard: a professional, they watched him for a long time, he was young,” Kommersant’s interlocutor said. Another interlocutor in the party says that the candidate was proposed by Gennady Zyuganov. “The decision regarding Klychkov is related to the need to find an equidistant figure who would not be involved in the struggle for posts in the party on the eve of the change of chairman,” says political scientist Nikolai Mironov, who works with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. “For him this is growth, but for others it would be withdrawal from struggle." “Everyone talks about career growth - I was given such an opportunity,” notes Andrey Klychkov.
Director of the Progressive Policy Foundation Oleg Bondarenko also believes that Klychkov’s surname “was not the first among the heirs in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and Zyuganov is in no hurry to leave.” The experience of Vadim Potomsky, Governor Sergei Levchenko in the Irkutsk region and Mayor of Novosibirsk Anatoly Lokot shows that work in the region “distances them from participation in determining the structure of future leadership in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and weakens their public image,” says ISEPI Research Director Alexander Pozhalov.
Andrei Klychkov will remain registered with the capital’s organization and will perform his previous functions (Secretary of the Central Committee, supervising the party vertical), Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee Dmitry Novikov told Kommersant. The head of the commission on science and industry, Leonid Zyuganov or Nikolai Zubrilin, could replace him in the Moscow City Duma faction, believes Vladimir Rodin from the Moscow city committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Leonid Zyuganov told Kommersant that he has a heavy workload on the Moscow City Duma commission: “If the party says “it is necessary,” I will not resist.”
With his decision, the president also changed the configuration of the 2018 Moscow mayoral elections. Andrei Klychkov told Kommersant back in the winter of 2017 that he would run for office (see Kommersant, February 17). The removal of Andrei Klychkov from Moscow could be beneficial for “future Democratic candidates and, in particular, Dmitry Gudkov” as his main competitor for second place, says Mr. Pozhalov. In the 2013 mayoral elections, the first deputy chairman of the Central Committee, Ivan Melnikov, participated from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (he became third with 10.7%), and oppositionist Alexei Navalny then became second with 27.2%. In February 2017, he stated that he considered Andrei Klychkov the strongest candidate. The head of the Moscow city committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, State Duma deputy Valery Rashkin, told Kommersant that the decision on the mayoral candidate would be made later, but did not specify whether he was ready to go himself. Dmitry Gudkov believes that now the communists will run for mayor “an older candidate who does not pose a threat” to the current mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
Let us note that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation also lost the deputy mandate of Andrei Klychkov by the elections to the Moscow City Duma in 2019 (he won in the South-Eastern Administrative District of Prefect Vladimir Zotov in 2014). Mr. Gudkov believes that no one will want to spend resources to “get a mandate for one year,” since the next single voting day will take place only on September 9, 2018. Kommersant’s interlocutor in the system of election commissions admits that by-elections in 2018, combined with mayoral elections, may not be held at all, since there will be less than a year left until the next voting day.
Vsevolod Inyutin, Voronezh; Maxim Ivanov, Ivan Safronov
After Klychkov leaves the Moscow City Duma, by-elections will be announced for his mandate, and the faction will most likely be headed by Leonid Zyuganov, the grandson of the party chairman, a party source told RBC.
“Klychkov is one of those people in the party who, despite his youth, has sufficient political experience, he is a modern person and one of the most suitable for such a position. Perhaps the authorities also have a political logic. In Moscow, he is a bright politician, and without Klychkov it will be easier to hold elections in the capital,” said RBC’s source in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation even before the release of the presidential decree on Klychkov’s appointment.
Another RBC source in the party suggested that Klychkov’s “exile” to a region that is not interesting in terms of electoral and economic resources may be associated with a future change of party chairman, when the struggle for key posts in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation intensifies.
"God is not a fraer"
The Oryol region is considered one of the “red regions”, where the position of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is strong (the communist Sergei Levchenko heads the Irkutsk region). Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov was born in the region, he has an apiary in the region.
The 45-year-old communist Potomsky, like Klychkov, was a “Varangian” for the Oryol region. Being a native of the Leningrad region, in 2012, as a candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, he competed for the post of head of the Bryansk region, but lost with the second result. In February 2014, the president appointed him governor of the Oryol region, where six months later he won the elections with a result of 89%.
However, according to experts, Potomsky did not become a strong governor. Last December, he was among the outsiders in the rating of survival of governors, compiled by experts from the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation and the Minchenko Consulting holding. Political scientist Evgeny Minchenko in his Telegram channel spoke about Potomsky’s “high level of conflict and poor performance in political positioning and the quality of political management.”
During his governorship, Potomsky more than once found himself in the spotlight due to his public statements. In the summer of 2016, on the eve of the installation of a monument to Ivan the Terrible in Orel, which caused protests from many city residents, the governor said that the installation of the monument was not the goal of canonizing Ivan the Terrible; Potomsky also reported that Ivan the Terrible did not kill his son, but that he allegedly died on the way from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
In May 2017, Potomsky journalists filed claims against Bishop Nektary in connection with a Toyota Land Cruiser donated to him worth 6 million rubles. with the words: “God is not a fraer.”
At the beginning of September 2017, the editor-in-chief of the Krasnaya Stroka newspaper, Yuri Lebedkin, left the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, accusing Potomsky of leading the region to “collapse.” Lebedkin wrote that in November 2016 Potomsky was deprived military ranks lieutenant colonel and major, which were illegally assigned to the governor. In December, a copy of the newspaper, which contained criticism of the authorities and personally the head of the region, disappeared from the printing house. Lebedkin insists that this was done on the personal instructions of the governor. In addition, the publication’s journalists found out that Potomsky “illegally ascribes to himself the title of master of sports in judo.”
"Absolute anachronism"
Potomsky as a governor was perceived as “an absolute anachronism,” says political scientist Vitaly Ivanov: “This is a businessman from the 1990s - early 2000s, of which there were many in power at that time.” (At the same time, Novaya Gazeta connected the governor’s relatives with processing enterprises.)
Potomsky’s political talents are questionable, head of the “Political Expert Group” Konstantin Kalachev told RBC. “They tried to position him as an effective manager, but there was no evidence of this,” says the expert. Among Potomsky’s main problems, he named the conflict with the regional council deputy and businessman Vitaly Rybakov, who represented the “passionate” part of the local elite; cool relations with regional communists and with Zyuganov; serious image failures. Closed sociology for the region showed that the head of the region had problems with his rating, Kalachev added.
The Kremlin did not have any particular complaints about Potomsky, political consultant Dmitry Fetisov counters. In his opinion, he played in favor of the governor high level holding the anniversary of the Eagle and maximum implementation of the May decrees. It will be much more difficult for his successor to withstand the conflict with the regional elites, in particular to resist the enormous influence of the ex-regional governor Yegor Stroev.
The governor of the Oryol region, Vadim Potomsky, may resign in the near future; the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation faction in the Moscow City Duma, Andrei Klychkov, is being considered for his place in the acting status. A source in the party leadership told Izvestia about this; the information was confirmed by three interlocutors close to the presidential administration. Andrei Klychkov himself confirmed his appointment to Izvestia.
The Oryol region is one of the “red regions” where support for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is traditionally strong; communist leader Gennady Zyuganov was born in the village of Mymrino. Until 2009, the region was led by the former first secretary of the Oryol regional committee of the CPSU Egor Stroev. And although in 2005 he joined the “ United Russia“, the region has long been considered one of the last subjects of the “red belt”.
With the return of direct gubernatorial elections, communist Vadim Potomsky was elected head of the region in 2014 (two years earlier, he unsuccessfully ran for governor of another “red” region - the Bryansk region). However, Vadim Potomsky’s tenure as head of the region cannot be considered successful, experts say.
Vadim Potomsky failed to suppress the resistance of some of the local elites or come to an agreement with them, Mikhail Vinogradov, president of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation, told Izvestia. - As a result, they scaled up any failure and put it on the federal agenda - just like the opponents of Merkushkin or Miklushevsky (former head of the Samara region and Primorye - Izvestia). He did not completely become either an exemplary “red” governor or a reformed “system” governor - due to impulsiveness, he did not completely become one of his own either in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation or in the nomenklatura.
Vadim Potomsky is a classic man from the 1990s, both in style and in his manner of communication, believes the head of Minchenko Consulting, Evgeniy Minchenko.
He is one of the “commercial communists”, and in fact is a foreign body for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. A sort of man from the garbage business (the governor’s ex-business was associated with several processing enterprises in the Leningrad region - Izvestia), who came to politics.
The main contender for the place of Vadim Potomsky is communist Andrei Klychkov, an interlocutor in the party leadership told Izvestia and confirmed by three interlocutors close to the presidential administration. Since 2009, he has been a deputy of the Moscow City Duma, head of the Communist Party faction.
Andrei Klychkov already has experience in participating in “individual” (not as part of a party list) competitive elections: in 2014, he was re-elected to the Moscow City Duma in a single-mandate constituency, defeating the then prefect of the South-Eastern District, Vladimir Zotov. Previously, Andrei Klychkov announced his intention to run for mayor of Moscow in 2018. However, following the results of the elections of councils of deputies on September 10, it became obvious that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation would not pass the municipal filter on its own: the communists received only 43 mandates.
Municipal elections showed that communists in Moscow are unlikely to be able to compete for the post of mayor, and in the Oryol region the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has a serious base. In this sense, Klychkov has good opportunities for work and professional growth. It is extremely important that when updating the gubernatorial corps, not only candidates from United Russia are considered, but also strong young politicians representing large opposition parties, Konstantin Kostin, head of the Civil Society Development Foundation, told Izvestia. – At the same time, maintaining a communist governor in the Oryol region seems logical. In any case, Vadim Potomsky was considered as a candidate for replacement, and maintaining its influence here is a serious bonus for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
The head of the Center for Economic and Political Reforms, Nikolai Mironov, noted in a comment to Izvestia that the decision to appoint Andrei Klychkov as acting head of the Oryol region can also be considered as one of the steps aimed at the successful transition of power within the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
This is in the logic of the internal party struggle, since other young party members do not need such a strong and promising competitor, moreover, with experience of successful participation in competitive elections, noted Nikolai Mironov. - Klychkov did not belong to any of the internal communist clans; he cannot be called someone else’s person.
With the appointment of Andrei Klychkov to the Oryol region, not a single clan is strengthened, and with his departure from the list of contenders for leading positions in the party, not a single clan is weakened. At the same time, the intensity of the internal party struggle is being reduced by narrowing the number of candidates for key positions in the event of the expected resignation of Gennady Zyuganov from the post of party chairman.
If Andrei Klychkov leaves the Moscow City Duma, by-elections should be announced for his mandate. He was elected from the 21st single-mandate constituency (Vykhino-Zhulebino and Kuzminki).
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