“Faceless” Regional Leaders of Russia

The paper investigates the specificity of regional leadership in political system of Russia. The official biographies of all current heads of administrations were studied. We estimated such characteristics of the governors as age, education, career traffic, membership in parties, political beliefs, inclinations and preferences. The analysis of transformations of the main characteristics of the leader was carried out in order to establish the degree of dependence of the leader on the political surrounding and political situation. Today regional leaders and current governors have found themselves in a rather complex system of inter-institutional relations. On the one hand, representatives of the regional elite must effectively solve the economic problems facing the region, ensure the implementation of federal programs, sometimes with substantially reduced funding, to participate in elections and be guided by the opinion of voters, but at the same time, the elite must show complete loyalty to the Center and should not exceed the permitted limits. Such situation leads to obvious political atrophy of leadership in regions. Possible strong candidates do not want to get involved in the elections. As a result, the specific type of the regional leader - “faceless-leader” was formed. In fact, to date, a certain "personnel reserve" of loyal politicians has been formed, who are appointed to the posts of acting governors. It is important to note that the electoral procedure remains unchanged. Most of the governors so appointed are not representatives or come from the regions to which they are “assigned”. Also, there are no dependencies regarding career, age, profession, work experience, etc. Very often, appointments are in the nature of a situational response. In fact, with the formal preservation of democratic procedures, elections in the region become fully controlled and regulated by the federal center. Based on the political environment, the electoral system is very often subject to manipulation. The election of governors continues to be perceived by the federal center as a purely bureaucratic procedure for replacing the top regional official, and not as a political choice of voters. The governors themselves are often perceived by the Center as functionaries appointed to solve a specific problem in the region. Recent appointments have included both vertical and horizontal movements of candidates. The main requirements are loyalty and readiness to integrate into the existing system of government. The situation provokes a crisis in the political system of the region, which in the end leads to the development of corruption ties in the power echelons and as a result of the adoption of inefficient decisions, the reduction of the professional level of management personnel. The results of the recent elections in a number of regions showed a critical level of people's trust in the ruling political elite, which was reflected in low turnout and high degree of absenteeism especially among the young people. Today existing system creates “risk zones” from both a political and an economic point of view.