Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

Putin and the election of regional governors 115Orel oblast when he turned 70 in February 2007 (in Russia the usual retirementage for men is 60). 36 In a notable case of nepotism, Stroev appointedhis daughter to be senator from the region. And according to the head of thesmall business-lobbying group in the region, ‘only businesses connected toStroev, his family or close associates have the chance to develop in ourregion’. 37 Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov had been in office since 1992. 38 Heis the only mayor in the world whose wife (Yelena Baturina) is a billionaire,all ‘earned’ of course by her construction company while Luzhkov was inoffice and mostly through projects that were directly under the city’s control.Among the longest-serving executives were a number of leaders of ethnicrepublics, including Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Tyva and Kalmykiya. All hadbeen republic presidents since at least 1993. Mintimer Shaimiev, one of thefirst to be reappointed, also turned 70 in 2007 and had been Tatarstan’sleader since 1991. Bashkortostan’s president Murtaz Rakhimov, 71 when hewas reappointed in 2005, was widely viewed as perhaps the most authoritarianregional leader, and he managed to put his son in charge of animportant conglomerate in the region’s energy sector.A number of regions had governors who were either members of, or hadclose ties to, the KPRF. The fates of these ‘red governors’ varied underPutin’s new system. Several who never managed to establish a good workingrelationship with the Kremlin were forced out, including Vasilii Starodubtsevof Tula, Vladimir Tikhonov of Ivanovo, Nizhnii Novgorod’s GennadiiKhodyrev, and Petr Sumin in Chelyabinsk. Others who had been supportedby the KPRF in the past, however, were reappointed – Nikolai Vinogradovof Vladimir, Viktor Shershunov of Kostroma, and Yuri Lodkin of Bryansk.There were several cases in which Putin’s approach could be summarizedas, ‘the new governor should be anyone except the old one’. Thus, thereplacement of an incumbent resulted in surprising nominations of candidateswith no political and little administrative experience. When BorisGovorin’s term in Irkutsk expired, he was replaced by Alexander Tishanin,whose entire career had been spent in the railroad sector. Tula oblast’s ‘redgovernor’ Starodubtsev was replaced by Viacheslav Dudka, who had beendeputy director of a mechanical engineering office. The long-time governorof Saratov oblast, Dmitry Ayatskov, was replaced by Pavel Ipatov, at thetime director of a nuclear power station. In these and other cases, one purposewas apparently to avoid selecting anyone with close ties to one of therival political factions in a region. In three regions former aides to Moscowmayor Yuri Luzhkov were brought in to serve as governors: Mikhail Men' inIvanovo, Georgii Boos in Kaliningrad, and Valerii Shantsev in NizhniiNovgorod. The successor Putin named to take the place of Yevdokimov inAltai Krai was Alexander Karlin, who had worked in a minor capacity inthe presidential administration as head of the civil service department.Non-Russian republics seemed to warrant far more attention from theKremlin’s decision-makers, perhaps because of the potential for ethnic conflict.Appointments of new republic presidents resulted in leaders with