Center for Security Studies

The Revival of Russia’s Gubernatorial Elections

The Revival of Russia’s Gubernatorial Elections

Liberalization or Potemkin Reform?

Author(s): J. Paul Goode
Editor(s): Stephen Aris, Matthias Neumann, Robert Orttung, Jeronim Perovic, Heiko Pleines, Hans-Henning Schröder, Aglaya Snetkov
Series: Russian Analytical Digest (RAD)
Issue: 139
Pages: 9-11
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich; Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen; Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, George Washington University
Publication Year: 2013

After an eight year pause, gubernatorial elections returned to Russia in 2012. Formerly appointed governors are now being put to the electoral test, and the Kremlin is discovering the extent to which it sacrificed effective regional leadership for loyalty to the federal center. It now finds itself on the horns of a dilemma: if it continues to heap blame on regional leaders for economic failures and declining trust in the country’s political institutions, then the ranks of volunteers willing to serve as governor will dwindle. Yet if it seeks to attract capable candidates to stand for governor, it may be forced to decentralize power and to allow an opening of regional elections to more opposition candidates.

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