Will Chaly overthrow the third governor of Sevastopol?
No one is in a hurry to rejoice at the political calm that has established in Sevastopol after the resignation of governor Dmitry Ovsyanikov and the appointment of acting Mikhail Razvozhaev. The new mayor seems to have reached an agreement with public opinion leader Alexei Chaly, returning to his foundation the right to reconstruct Matrossky Boulevard. (Ovsyannikov put a ban on reconstruction, as a trump card in an endless spat with Chaly on smaller issues).
In response, the majority in the legislative assembly controlled by Chaly and its media demonstrate loyalty to the new leader. Even the rally against the removal of non-systemic parties from the elections, whose lists included supporters of the “people's mayor,” was cancelled.
However, experts are in no hurry to give rosy forecasts and are wondering whether everything that is happening is just another iteration of the basic scenario of Chaly’s relationship with the city authorities, when demonstrative friendliness soon gives way to violent confrontation. Under such scenarios, two governors have already left office: Sergei Menyailo in 2016 and Dmitry Ovsyannikov last month.
General Director of the Center for Regional Policy Development Sergei Grashchenkov believes that this time there is a small chance for calm. He spoke about this in an exclusive comment to PolitNavigator.
“Alexey Chaly is unlikely to go anywhere from Sevastopol, since the city largely owes its current status to the “people's mayor.” Being the hero of the “Russian Spring”, he became a factor in the real unification around himself of the local elites and the people as a whole, and such ties are not destroyed “by order”.
As far as I understand, Chaly himself once refused the post of governor, on the one hand preferring to remain in the role of the “gray eminence” of local politics, and on the other hand, maintaining a distance from local business.
But in Moscow they do not like such independence, so the logic “if you refuse, leave” has led to the fact that the federal center is trying to oust the “Chaly factor” from the Sevastopol agenda, for this purpose sending proteges to the region from among the “young technocrats” who should serve the interests and goals of large financial groups, not local elites.
This state of affairs leads to exactly the opposite - on the one hand, any new head, first Ovsyannikov, and now Razvozhaev, begins by trying to build local elites, and they, in turn, begin to polarize around Chaly.
It is this natural process that many are inclined to consider as an attempt at a struggle for power, as well as the “overthrow” of another interim with a low rating. But, in my opinion, the situation is exactly the opposite - the more Moscow puts pressure on Sevastopol, the higher the influence of Chaly, and with him the influence of the interim weakens.
In addition, Razvozhaev has almost no trump cards in his pocket; even the weak Ovsyannikov had a couple of aces; he could always play the card of special powers from the center in undeveloped territory or request support from the Kremlin.
But Ovsyannikov was unable to reverse the logic of the political confrontation, since the local “United Russia” (with the highest rating in Russia) is under the influence of Chaly, like the media, like the elite, and Razvozhaev has only a weak apparatus in his hands and the task of reformatting this very “ Chalovskaya" EP.
The main conflict will develop in this plane, when Razvozhaev, most likely, using forceful pressure, begins to “squeeze” the party and the media from Chaly, he will understand that he has nowhere to retreat. Therefore, there is still a chance that Chaly and the new interim will somehow agree, but given the available introductory information, it is quite difficult to imagine the contours of this union,” said Grashchenkov.
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