Who will replace the descendant. Klychkov will replace Pomsky as head of the Oryol region
The series of resignations of Russian governors continues. The rotation has already affected Nikolai Merkushkin (Samara Region), Valery Shantsev (Nizhny Novgorod Region), Ramazan Abdulatipov (Republic of Dagestan), Igor Kashin (Nenets Autonomous Okrug), and Viktor Tolokonsky (Krasnoyarsk Territory). At the beginning of the week, it became known about a new candidate for "expulsion": the governor of the Oryol region, Vadim Potomsky, is preparing to leave his post. Novaya Gazeta remembered what the region remembered him for.
Communist Vadim Potomsky became head of the Oryol region in 2014. In February, he was appointed acting governor, when Alexander Kozlov left his post due to the expiration of his term of office. Potomsky later won the election with a stunning 89%. Despite the traditional popularity of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the Oryol region, with the advent of Potomsky, the communists began to lose their positions in the region, and already in 2015 they received only four mandates in the city council of Orel, although they had previously occupied half of the seats. In the elections to the regional council in 2016, the communists were also defeated.
The popularity of Potomsky himself also steadily declined. In the June ranking of governors, he took first place from the end. In fairness, we note that a high place in the ranking of heads of regions does not guarantee immunity. The first among equals - Valery Shantsev - was also dismissed.
The results of managing Vadim Potomsky in the Oryol region are disappointing. Last year alone, the region's debt increased by 3 billion rubles, and wage arrears amounted to 66 million. , as well as a special economic zone has not been created. In addition, Orleks and Dormash enterprises were closed.
One can single out a special "achievement" of Potomsky - a historical one - the installation of the country's first monument to Ivan the Terrible. The appearance of the monument to Grozny, whose rule was accompanied by repressions, met with serious resistance from civil society. In the process of fighting for the monument, the governor of Oryol "glorified" himself once again, expressing an unusual version of the reasons for the death of his son Ivan the Terrible. According to Potomsky, the tsar did not kill his offspring, but simply failed to help his sick son on the way from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The fact that St. Petersburg was founded a hundred years later, the head of the Oryol region, apparently, forgot. Despite everything, the monument was erected at a solemn ceremony in the presence of Potomsky himself, the publicist Alexander Prokhanov and the leader of the Night Wolves, Alexander Zaldostanov.
Another scandal in the region arose after the parents of several schools at once announced that portraits of the governor appeared on the stands "Symbols of the Orel Region" in educational institutions. They were later removed.
Deputies of the city council of Orel Sergey Yelesin and Igor Konovalov assure: the inhabitants of the region have long been waiting for the resignation of Potomsky.
“99.9% of the Oryol region will react positively to his resignation. Everyone perceives it extremely negatively. Potomsky doesn’t care, he was governor, did nothing and left, but we live here,” says Konovalov.
Critics of Vadim Potomsky hope that the Oryol region, in the logic of the current shifts, will be headed not by a "Varangian", but by one of the locals.
As it became known to Novaya Gazeta, three candidates are being considered to replace Potomsky: State Duma deputy from the Communist Party Yuri Afonin, head of the operational department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Anatoly Yakunin and former senator from the Oryol region Pavel Merkulov. In addition to Afonin, who was born in Tula, the rest of the candidates come from the Oryol region.
No final decision has been made on Potot-sky, and he is not the only candidate for relegation. In all likelihood, within a week, the head of the Omsk region, Viktor Nazarov, and Komi, Sergey Gaplikov, will say goodbye to their post.
Communist Vadim Potomsky has been heading the Oryol region since 2014. On the morning of October 2, Kommersant, citing its sources, said that Potomsky might soon leave his post. The governor himself declined to comment on such reports. "" remembered five reasons for the resignation of Potomsky.
Ambiguous monuments
Vadim Potomsky became known outside his region thanks to the first Russian monument to Tsar Ivan the Terrible. Public figures and activists are against the monument. At the opening, Orthodox radicals in T-shirts with extremist slogans.
Yaroslavl activist Vladimir Lopatin specially arrived in Oryol, he put a bag on the head of the statue of the king and hung the inscription “What stuffiness, darkness.” And in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, a local artist erected an "alternative monument" to the tsar - a "bloody" stake.
Following Ivan the Terrible, the Oryol communists decided to erect a monument to another historical figure, who at one time made a lot of efforts to popularize the image of the tsar - Joseph Stalin [in 1944, Sergei Eisenstein made a feature film about Grozny on his order]. On August 20, the communists once again demanded that officials erect a monument to the leader.
Corruption
On August 23, Oryol News published information about possible conflicts of interest between Potomsky and his relatives, who, after his confirmation as governor, received several state contracts for garbage removal. The governor's cousin Artyom Bagdasorov, according to journalists, won tenders for 100 million rubles. during the work of Potomsky in Orel. His firm has established its own media outlet, which, according to Orel News, serves the interests of Potomsky.
Phrases-memes
Internet users remember Potomsky as the author of quotes that he gave out in conversations with journalists.
In July 2016, talking about his attitude towards Ivan the Terrible, he mentioned that the tsar was traveling with his son from St. Petersburg to Moscow (St. Petersburg was founded 119 years after the death of the tsar).
On December 25, 2016, he called “nonsense” those who “have a pen and a leaf” and at the same time “pokes how bad it is in the Oryol region.” Such people, according to Potomsky, repel investors from the region.
The governor of the Oryol region, Vadim Potomsky, may soon resign, and Andrei Klychkov, head of the Communist Party faction in the Moscow City Duma, is being considered for his place in the status of acting. This was told to Izvestia by a source in the party leadership, the information was confirmed by three interlocutors close to the presidential administration. Andrei Klychkov himself confirmed his appointment to Izvestia.
The Oryol region is one of the "red regions", where the support of the Communist Party is traditionally strong, in the village of Mymrino, the communist leader Gennady Zyuganov was born. Until 2009, the former first secretary of the Oryol regional committee of the CPSU, Yegor Stroev, led the region. And although in 2005 he joined United Russia, the region has long been considered one of the last subjects of the "red belt".
With the return of direct gubernatorial elections, the communist Vadim Potomsky was elected head of the region in 2014 (two years earlier he had unsuccessfully ran for governor of another "red" region - the Bryansk region). However, the stay of Vadim Potomsky as head of the region cannot be considered successful, experts say.
Vadim Potomsky failed to suppress the resistance of some of the local elites or negotiate with them, Mikhail Vinogradov, president of the Petersburg Politics Foundation, told Izvestia. - As a result, they scaled up any failure and put it on the federal agenda - like the opponents of Merkushkin or Miklushevsky (the former head of the Samara region and Primorye. - Izvestia). He did not completely become either an exemplary "red" governor, or a reforged "systemic" one - due to impulsiveness, he did not finally become his own either in the Communist Party or in the nomenklatura.
Vadim Potomsky is a classic person from the 1990s, both in style and in the manner of communication, Evgeny Minchenko, head of Minchenko-Consulting, believes.
He is from among the "commercial communists", and in fact - an alien body for the Communist Party. A sort of person from the garbage business (the ex-governor's business was associated with several processing enterprises in the Leningrad Region. - Izvestia), who came into politics.
The main contender for the place of Vadim Potomsky is the communist Andrey Klychkov, an interlocutor in the party leadership told Izvestia and confirmed by three interlocutors close to the presidential administration. Since 2009, he has been a deputy of the Moscow City Duma, the head of the Communist Party faction.
Andrey Klychkov already has experience of participating in “individual” (not part of the party list) competitive elections: in 2014 he was re-elected to the Moscow State Duma in a single-mandate district, having won against the then prefect of the South-Eastern District Vladimir Zotov. Earlier, Andrey Klychkov announced his intention to run for mayor of Moscow in 2018. However, following the results of the elections of councils of deputies on September 10, it became clear that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation would not pass the municipal filter on its own: the Communists received only 43 mandates.
The municipal elections showed that the Communists in Moscow are unlikely to be able to compete for the post of mayor, and in the Oryol region the Communist Party has a serious base. In this sense, Klychkov has good opportunities for work and professional growth. It is extremely important that when updating the governor's corps, not only United Russia candidates are considered, but also strong young politicians representing large opposition parties, Konstantin Kostin, head of the Civil Society Development Fund, told Izvestia. - At the same time, the preservation of a communist governor in the Oryol region looks logical. In any case, Vadim Potomsky was considered as a candidate for a replacement, and for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation to maintain his influence here is a serious bonus.
The head of the Center for Economic and Political Reforms, Nikolai Mironov, noted in a commentary to Izvestia that the decision to appoint Andrey Klychkov as acting head of the Oryol region can also be seen as one of the steps aimed at a successful transit of power within the Communist Party.
This is in the logic of the intra-party struggle, since other young party members do not need such a strong and promising competitor, moreover, with experience of successful participation in competitive elections, - Nikolai Mironov noted. - Klychkov did not belong to any of the internal communist clans, he cannot be called someone's person.
With the appointment of Andrei Klychkov to the Oryol region, not a single clan is strengthened, and when he leaves the list of contenders for leading positions in the party, not one of them is weakened. At the same time, the intensity of the intra-party struggle is reduced due to the narrowing of the number of candidates for key positions in the event of the expected departure of Gennady Zyuganov from the post of party chairman.
If Andrei Klychkov leaves the Moscow City Duma, by-elections should be announced for his mandate. He was elected from the 21st single-member constituency (Vykhino-Zhulebino and Kuzminki).
13:24 — REGNUM The issue of the resignation from the post of governor of the Oryol region again became relevant — the day before, on May 25, the media disseminated information that soon Potomsky as head of the region can change Murat Zyazikov.
Information about imminent retirement Vadim Potomsky distributed the publication "Notebook" with reference to sources in the presidential administration. Journalists even named a possible candidate for the new head of the region - according to their information, it could be Murat Zyazikov. As noted, Zyazikov's candidacy is allegedly being lobbied by the former governor of the Oryol region. Egor Stroev.
However, Zyazikov himself said, commenting on this information, that he knew nothing about such plans.
Vadim Potomsky, a member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, was appointed acting governor of the Oryol region in February 2014. He changed his post Alexandra Kozlova, which, in turn, was appointed instead of Egor Stroev but only lasted one term. In September 2014, Potomsky successfully passed through the direct election process. However, literally from the moment the new governor came to the region, various kinds of scandals have haunted him (from the “bathroom” story involving his deputy to the installation of a monument to Ivan the Terrible), and reports of his impending resignation appear with unenviable frequency.
Among the most revealing scandals is the conflict around the Orlovskaya Niva holding. Back in 2014, Potomsky announced that the holding was illegally sold to private ownership and that he intended to return it. The ICR then opened a criminal case, and the regional government filed a lawsuit in court to recognize the transaction as illegal. However, the court did not agree with the government's demands. And last year, the owner of Orlovskaya Niva Sergey Budagov changed the address of registration of the enterprise to the Tula region. Budagov himself was under investigation for almost a year: in March last year, he was accused of trying to give a bribe of five million rubles to the head of the state property department Andrey Sinyagov. The court, when considering the case, fully acquitted Budagov, seeing "signs of provocation, expressed in the inclination of Budagov by Sinyagov to give a bribe." The conclusions of the district court were confirmed at the end of April by the regional court.
Sinyagov himself recently found himself at the center of another scandal: Sinyagova's deputy accused him of assault. Now the TFR is sorting out the details of the story.
As for Potomsky, over the past six months, information about his resignation has appeared at least three times. Twice signatures demanding that Potomsky be fired from the post of governor were handed over to the presidential administration. Complicates the life of Potomsky and the situation in the regional branch of his native party.
Read about it:
However, Potomsky himself has repeatedly stated that the presidential administration has no complaints about his work. By the way, it is possible that Potomsky managed to find a common language with Yegor Stroev: the other day the governor announced that he intended to resign from the post of head of the regional government (now he combines both positions). The government of the region, as announced, may be headed by a business representative. According to some reports, he may become the chairman of the board of directors of PJSC Orelstroy (the largest developer in the region) - and part-time nephew of the ex-governor Vladimir Stroev.