Governors of Russia: They cannot be appointed

In the fall of 2017, Sevastopol is due to hold gubernatorial elections for the first time. Political strategist Oleg Matveychev is known as a categorical opponent of such a step. He told the columnist  "PolitNavigator" to Valentin Filippov, why governors appointed by President Vladimir Putin are more useful for Russia than those elected by the population.

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Valentin Filippov:  Oleg, hello. I see that you are prepared to talk about Sevastopol, you are wearing a vest. Sevastopol has always been a naval base, first and foremost. And now a decision has been made on the election of the governor of Sevastopol. How reasonable is this?                        

Oleg Matveyevich: Elections of governors are not reasonable in principle. Not only in relation to Sevastopol, but also to any subject of the Russian Federation. This is Bryansk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Murmansk, Saratov. In all cases, elections are a huge harm. The executive branch, just like in the army, must be structured uniformly and pyramidally. There is a president, there is a government, they make certain decisions. These decisions are conveyed to the officials below, and proceed accordingly. If a person is elected, he, firstly, is a hostage of those local elites who gave him money, provided support, administrative, financial, media, and so on and so forth. Accordingly, to whom is this governor already beholden? Who will he listen to orders from? The government and president of Russia or some local barons?

And during his election campaign he could have foolishly promised something that he would never do, for which he did not have the money. He is also a hostage to these things.

Therefore, when the gubernatorial elections were returned in 2011, it was a harmful thing, it was done to please the crowd, to please the “Maidan”. You need to clearly understand that here in Moscow there was a “swamp Maidan”, of course, not as terrible as in Kyiv, but the scum are the same. Absolutely the same scum. And so they just threw a bone. They said: “Here we are returning the gubernatorial elections.”

Yes, they introduced a municipal filter to keep out completely outspoken scum. Incomprehensible clowns, incomprehensible people. But this was done to please Evil. You must always clearly understand where Good is and where Evil is. Elections of governors in the state political system are an Evil that destroys the unity of the state.

What will the money be spent on? Not for cleaning the streets or anything else. On leaflets, on newspapers, on radio, on television, on all kinds of bullshit. Some kind of agitators. To a completely non-production sphere. Not for good deeds, but for agitation and war with each other.

Everyone will change their minds, make big promises to people, then fail to deliver, and the people will be dissatisfied with the authorities in the end. Russian authorities, including. This is what it will all lead to, nothing more.

Do you think that some governor will come and change something? Do you really think that people who don’t understand anything can determine for themselves who is the best boss and who is the worst?

Of course not!

Who is a good governor and who is not can be determined by the president, because he sets tasks and then sees how they are accomplished. Well done - he praises the person. If a person has performed poorly, he says, “You can’t cope.” He said once or twice - he understands that he needs to be fired.

The boss can understand whether his subordinate governor is good or not. But the people will never understand. Because if you install some buffoon who hasn’t done anything, he’ll tell tales. That the past is to blame, that someone else...

Valentin Filippov: Look, Oleg, according to this logic, should we abandon elections altogether?                         

Oleg Matveyevich: No. There are different things. There is an executive structure, as such. I fully and completely welcome the elections of deputies.

Valentin Filippov: Legislative power?                         

Oleg Matveyevich: Certainly! Representative and legislative powers. Here people choose from among themselves. From their people who know their problems. And these people go, sit in the body, in the council, in the Duma, there they express these aspirations, come up with bills, and introduce amendments to existing laws. And, accordingly, they say: “Executive power, let’s implement all this.” The people want it.

Please, it's all normal here. But, by the way, regarding the elections, without any irony, look, we have China. The most dynamically growing economy in the World over the past 25 years. One and a half billion people live there. There are no elections at all. None at all, not even parliamentary ones.

Valentin Filippov:  No, sorry. I don't agree. They have party conferences. They have elections at congresses within the Communist Party.                          

Oleg Matveyevich: Yes, but these are not our nationwide elections. Not so-called democracy.

Valentin Filippov: Why? Join the Communist Party and participate.                         

Oleg Matveyevich: They delegate some people, but, as a rule, they are all approved from the same “top”. Nobody delegates just anyone there either.

But this is us, so as not to go into distant political disputes, I can once again say one simple thing. In our country, most of the subjects of the Federation are subsidized. They receive money from the federal center and distribute it to cover mandatory expenses. Doctors, teachers, culture. What they have written down. That is, the governor essentially works as a distributing accountant. The money came to him - he scattered it according to previously known items. The money came and he scattered it. I collected a little tax and scattered it again. All. There, his role, his intelligence or his genius, actually mean nothing.

We were elected, at one time, to have a “red belt”. People elected governors who spoke beautifully. Have these areas somehow risen in our country? Did these governors do something that other United Russia governors did not do? Now the Irkutsk region has elected a communist. What, is his policy somehow radically different from the policy of the previous United Russia member? Yes, it only got worse. That United Russia member at least knew how to beg money from Moscow normally, he wrote beautiful programs, but this illiterate one came. He cannot even use the money that was allocated to him.

Valentin Filippov: By the way, this equalization with the redistribution of money really scares me. I have encountered a situation where regional officials are absolutely not interested in the development of the region, for the reason that “we will develop, we will have taxes, there will be more of them, but then they will take away from us more than a certain amount. And if we don’t have anything, they will still send us this amount from above.”

It’s easier for them to receive it from Moscow in one piece and scatter it here, than to collect their taxes from developing enterprises.

Thus, the interest of local officials in the development of the region disappears.                      

Oleg Matveyevich: There are problems here that we inherited from the Soviet Union, from economic geography. The Soviet Union did things for a reason. If there is a great river, a dam can be built there. He installed the dam - cheap energy. We are setting up an aluminum plant. Especially if there is some kind of clay nearby. The city needs to be set accordingly. And this has led to disequilibrium in the development of regions, for which people are not to blame.

Let's take the Kirov region, which is one of the most depressed. Are people to blame for the fact that nothing has developed in it, and there is almost nothing in it? That the Soviet Union once spent huge amounts of money on the development of Yamal and Khanty-Mansiysk because there was oil and gas there. Well, there is no oil and gas in the Kirov region! And we threw all the money there.

They built pipelines, now there are huge budgets there. Yamal, Khanty, these are donor budgets. There we take money to distribute it to the same Kirov region. In the end, people from the Kirov region, their grandfathers and everyone else, they built these gas pipelines, maybe they went on rotation to the same Yamal. People from the Kirov region died on the fields of World War II so that Russia would have sovereignty, including over Yamal. And so that oil and gas belong to the Russians, and not to the Fuhrer and the Third Reich. They killed, they died for it. And suddenly now some Yamal residents will say that “we are sitting on gas, we will live well, we are donors, and you are consumers, you are eating our gas”….

Valentin Filippov: Well, we will charge them for transit, like Ukraine.                           

Oleg Matveyevich: Yeah. They will also want to secede there. Of course, we must redistribute, that's for sure. Another thing is that there is a problem that you raised - it is necessary to stimulate officials and governors so that they create their own tax base. But you can stimulate them in other ways.

Not only because we refuse to distribute them or take away something. There are estimates - those same investments. We introduce a criterion for assessing the governor’s performance – the amount of investment. Both external and internal. Because if you have reached an agreement with internal businessmen and they invest with you, it means they like your investment climate. They love working for you. So you're great.

Look, there is an increase in investment over two or three years, which means the governor is benefiting. If there is no growth in investment, the tax base does not increase, we can administratively record this and punish it with some kind of administrative whip. In the end, expel them from the governors.

And this expulsion from governors should not be a problem. And again we return to the elections. I sit in the Kremlin, relatively speaking, in the government, I see that the person has worked for a year, he may not be a criminal, he does not take bribes, but I see that he is a bad governor. His investments are not growing, but on the contrary. The tax base does not increase. Jobs are being lost. I just have to say - starting tomorrow you write a statement and go and rest. All.

And now, when will he be chosen by the people? He will say: “I have a mandate from the people.” I am chosen. I promised the people a lot of things. 80% voted for me.

Valentin Filippov: Well, there is an option that some governor will say that there is no need to be dissatisfied with me, the center is preventing me from governing effectively.                          

Oleg Matveyevich: This is 100%. You know, this is another big problem with the election of governors. I talked about different ones, about management, about the budget. And you emphasized one more point. Separatism.

They are all afraid of Putin. No one will come out and say that I would be a wonderful governor, but Moscow is bothering me.

He won't say that. But no one is stopping them from giving money to some journalists, foundations, local nationalists, local separatists who write this openly. Somewhere on forums, on social networks, they awaken anti-Moscow, anti-federal, often anti-Russian, anti-Russian sentiments. If this is said about national republics. That's what's happening. Really.

Oh, well, now Putin, they are afraid. Just imagine, Putin is not eternal. Someone weaker will come instead of Putin. I’m not saying there, Yeltsin. And if Yeltsin, by the way? What will happen then? They will speak openly then, all these elected comrades. They will openly say that “Moscow is bothering us.” They will say: “Let’s declare the Ural Republic.”

Valentin Filippov: Regarding Yeltsin, Yeltsin had one way. To GosZnak, a planeload of money, and to the region. There it comes out: “I brought you a planeload of money!” And separatism ends. But inflation is rising.                         

Oleg Matveyevich: Yes, inflation was rising. We had it, I was going through this period. When they received a scholarship, they immediately ran to buy some thing, a hat, an umbrella, something. In order to sell it at a higher price in two weeks. Because money depreciated.

Valentin Filippov: Well, we're about the same age.                         

Oleg Matveyevich: Yes. To save money in things.

Valentin Filippov: We immediately ran for vodka. It quickly became more expensive.

Oleg Matveyevich: We had vodka on coupons. So you can't buy much. And I had to buy everything. So that later you can simply sell it. I remember buying carbon copies, paper, cartridges. Something that can be implemented, thereby saving money.