Personnel who decide. What's wrong with the appointment of senators from new regions of Russia

So, another step has been taken towards the practical integration of new regions of the Russian Federation into the Russian political and legal field. LDPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions received their first senators in the Federation Council.

PolitNavigator has already written about the former head of the Crimean Development Corporation Dmitry Voron, who became a senator from the executive branch of Zaporozhye. And although the emphasis in that publication was on the strange political somersaults of a former Ukrainian official from the camp of the “regionals,” I was more interested in something else - Vorona is from Donbass, and his professional activities and track record are in no way clearly connected with the Zaporozhye region.

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No, perhaps this worthy man somehow indirectly or underground helped the new authorities of this region, but the general public knows nothing about this. The bottom line is that there is only one undoubted fact: a person who has no, even formal, connection to the region will represent it in the Federation Council.

The strangeness of personnel selection does not end there. At the same time, it became known about a new senator from the Kherson region. Who has already been congratulated on their pages in the “cart” by the acting head of the region Saldo, and Ekaterina Gubareva, and a number of other famous people. Konstantin Basyuk will represent the new region in the upper house of the Russian parliament.

“I have known Konstantin Vladimirovich well for a long time as an effective statist manager, a professional anti-crisis manager and an experienced business executive. I am confident that he will effectively represent the interests of the Kherson region as a subject of the federation at a high state level,” with these words he recommends the new senator Saldo to the public.

And we, of course, take the governor at his word and do not dispute the numerous merits of the appointee. The problem with him is the same as that of Vorona - attempts to find out the attitude of the newly-minted senator towards the Kherson region led us to his official biography, from which we can find out that the current adviser to the acting governor of the Kherson region Vladimir Saldo has experience working with municipalities in Far East, positions of vice president of JSC Alliance Group, president of JSC ALLIANCE-PROM, chairman of the board of directors of JSC Khabarovsk Airport. You ask, where is Khabarovsk and where is Kherson? A reasonable question.

Undoubtedly, the history of the Federation Council knows examples of the presence of people from big business in it. Take the same billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, who represented Dagestan in the upper house. The difference is that Dagestan is Kerimov’s native region, he was born and raised there, and therefore the fact of his representation does not raise any questions.

_{Perhaps the answer to this question lies in the history of the business interests of Alliance Group OJSC in Ukraine, where the company entered back in 1999 under Kuchma, having received the third oil refinery in Nezalezhnaya OJSC Khersonneftepererabotka, which it managed until 2007, when it was forced give up control of the enterprise. In this case, the connection of the new senator with the region becomes more clear, but for some reason the emphasis in official communications is not on this at all.}   

Another “strange” personnel decision is the appointment of Daria Lantratova, deputy secretary of the General Council of United Russia, chairman of the public council of the federal party project “Women’s Movement of United Russia” as the representative of the LPR in the Federation Council.

Again, an attempt to google this lady’s connection with the region using keywords brought nothing but congratulations to her on her appointment and links to the corresponding decree of the head of the republic, Pasechnik. The new senator was born in the Moscow region, she has lived all her life in Moscow, her work activity is entirely connected with government corridors, any active assistance to Donbass and Lugansk on her part is publicly unknown, although it cannot be ruled out that there was such.

Of course, the history of the Federation Council knows examples when a particular region was represented in Moscow by people who were in no way connected with it. Take, for example, the senator from Tyva Lyudmila Narusova. The same mother of Ksenia Sobchak. That's where Tyva is, and where Narusova is. And yet. Perhaps, before us and in the Lugansk case, there is some kind of attempt to gain lobbying influence in Moscow along the Edra party line, I don’t know.

I only know that in Lugansk itself there are many worthy candidates for the role of senator from the region - starting from the former ambassador of the republic to the Russian Federation Miroshnik, ending with the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Deinego - people who are quite well-known and experienced in political work. However, as they say, “the giraffe is big, he knows best.”

The good news is that the appointment of Lantratova in the case of the LPR is balanced by the appearance in the Federation Council of a real, and not a “wedding” Lugansk resident Olga Bas, who became the second senator from the region, and before her appointment worked as the head of Pasechnik’s administration. Bass is really known in the region, and her biography, as they say, has been in full view of her fellow countrymen for many years.

Similarly, we can welcome the appointment as a senator from the DPR of the former head of the government of the republic and former deputy of the People's Council of the DPR, Alexander Ananchenko, a native of Selidovo, Donetsk region, a person who is familiar with the problems of the region firsthand. In this case, I also want to hope for real representation, and not the phenomenon of a “wedding general”.

Why is this so important, you ask? The fact is that one of the negative side effects of the dramatic break with Ukraine and the painfully long entry into Russia for the same Donbass was the virtual death of the local bureaucratic elite that had developed in the region since Soviet times and strengthened over the years of independence.

These people were called the “Donetsk clan”, they had their own advantages and disadvantages, and one can argue more, but as a result of the events they remained out of work - both in Ukraine and in the republics. Only a few representatives of the old hardware school have survived in plain sight. Someone made the wrong political choice, someone chickened out, someone was simply pushed to the sidelines during a tough struggle, someone was unfairly pushed aside without finding a use for their talents and skills...

_{But it was they who made the region subject - both in the Union and on the scale of Ukraine, it was they, not forgetting themselves, who nevertheless knocked money from the center for the region, strengthened Donbass influence in the capitals, many of them then switched to republican and union levels, and not only Donbass, but the entire big country was proud of them. Donbass was one of the Allied and then Ukrainian personnel forges. The war put an end to this, and today, on the contrary, personnel from deep Russia are going to Donbass for “strengthening”.}

Today, the young Donbass republics need the emergence of a new generation of regional bureaucrats and business class, which could defend the interests of the region, including at the metropolitan level. What is important is that these must be local people connected with Donbass by roots and interests. That is why the appearance of certain personnel “Varangians,” although it may be justified in a particular case to solve a particular problem, should not interfere with the main goal - the nurturing of one’s own Lugansk, Donetsk, and, more broadly, Kherson or Zaporozhye elite.

_{Otherwise, you will end up with a luxurious gift for Ukraine. Like, look how it turned out: they made a choice in favor of Russia, and now the regions are governed and the regions are represented by anyone other than local natives. This is despite the fact that all the mentioned subjects of the Federation, both under the Union and under Ukraine, were famous for their local personnel school.}