Krasnodar, 30 October – Yug Times. Gennadi Podlesny, member of the Expert Council of the Russian Government, member of the regional Civic Chamber, President of the Centre for Applied Social and Political Studies.
Q.: Last week, new municipal heads were appointed in Belorechensk and Goriachy Kluch. In your opinion, what are the criteria used by the regional power when dismissing and appointing the municipal heads?
A.: Replacement of municipal heads is a normal phenomenon. Rotation of employees occurs in all spheres of public, political and economic life. In my opinion, the current criteria for assessment of the existing and future municipal heads have undergone certain changes, if compared with the criteria that used to be applied by the previous governor [Aleksandr Tkachev]. The main criterion is that of competence, and only then of loyalty to the boss. What Veniamin Kondratiev applies to the candidates to all positions may be described as a ‘technocratic approach’.
Q.: Did you Centre measure the level of support of President Vladimir Putin by inhabitants of the Krasnodar region after the rise of the retirement age?
A.: Our Centre did study the issue of the rating of the authorities and of the level of trust to them. Our results, on the whole, collate with those announced by federal think tanks. The legislative change of the retirement policy has negatively affected both the level of trust to the authorities and personally President Vladimir Putin, who assumed the responsibility for such an unpopular measure. The rating of the United Russia, the country’s main political force, also fell down. All these factors will sharpen the political struggle during the upcoming election campaigns.
Q.: In some ratings, Governor Veniamin Kondratiev tops the list, while in others he finds himself in the lower rows. Why is that so?
A.: I think I will not break the ‘corporate solidarity’ if I express my opinion on various ratings. Most of them are not objective, because they are prepared by people that do not have any research tools, except for official statistics and reviews of regional media. Everything that has to do with the changes of the political constituent of various ratings is a very individualized phenomenon. Sometimes, a mere refusal of a governor’s team to give a material support to the authors of a rating may send crushing down that governor’s rating by 5 to 7 points.
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