The Gubernatorial Elections in Russia in 2012-2018: Establishment, Status, Prospectives

Abstract

The article is devoted to the evolution of gubernatorial elections in the Russian Federation in 1991-2018 which is perceived as an element of constructing of the federative relations as well as the democratic transition in the post-Soviet period. It is maintained that in the 1990s the federal center didnʼt establish the focused control of political processes in the regions, whereas since the beginning of the 2000s the interrelated tendencies have been observed such as weakening of the regional elites and strengthening of the federal centre in the federative relations. Restitution of the direct gubernatorial elections in 2012 under the pressure of the intense mass protests is estimated in the article as certain but not essential correction of the federal centre political course: the procedure which is democratic by nature has been embedded into the authoritarian practices of the power vertical system. This conclusion is affirmed by the analysis of the electoral statistics and the open data revealing the governorsʼ rotation in 2012-2018. The failures of the federal centre appointees in a few regions in 2018 show not the political crisis but the political actorsʼ increasing needs of changes in the game rules. In the case of maintaining status-quo the federal centre still will hold the possibilities to control the political situation; however, every systemʼs mistake will lead to the increasingly negative consequences.