
|
1. Central
Federal District
2. Southern
Federal District
3.
Northwestern Federal District
4. Far Eastern
Federal District
5. Siberian
Federal District
6. Urals
Federal District
7. Volga
Federal District |
In his first
substantive policy move, Putin acted boldly to rebuild central
authority and restructure the federation. He began by decreeing, in
May 2000, a division of Russia into seven federal districts –
Central, Northwestern, Southern, Volga, Urals, Siberian, and Far
Eastern – under Kremlin-appointed governors-general. Their
assignment was to establish “a single legal and economic space in
Russia,” and the implied brief was to restrain the power of the
regional barons, dismantle regional authoritarian regimes, and bring
unruly governors into line by anticorruption investigations.
In economic
terms, many of the constituent units of the federation are
minuscule, and there is little cooperation between them by
international standards. It is hardly surprising that regional
bosses have become “oligarchs” on a local scale. Much of their power
stemmed from their control of the local outposts of federal agencies
such as Interior, Procurator’s, Federal Security Service, regional
branches of the Central Bank, and tax police. Most of the local
leaders used the regional offices of federal ministries to their own
political and private advantage. Now these agencies were to be taken
out of their hands and put under the control of the president’s
plenipotentiaries.
In theory, the
new scheme could create a powerful new layer of government, serving
as a “buffer” between the president and the regional leaders and
thus diminishing the latter in status and importance. Some
commentators, concerned about the fact that five out of the seven
presidential envoys happened to be generals of the security
apparatus, interpreted their appointment to supervise the elected
governors as an indication that the president was slowly reverting
to the repressive police-state mentality that ruled the Kremlin in
the Soviet Union.
Certainly, the
institution of “supergovernors,” answerable only to the president,
helps to strengthen the vertical structure, with the Kremlin at the
apex. Whether this will lead to the return of a police state or will
result in more effective government is too early to say. There are
encouraging signs, however, that the new system does help to curb
the arbitrary power of autocratic regional princes in some parts of
the country, including the Russian Far East Maritime Province, where
Governor Evgeny Nazdratenko’s notorious misrule continued unchecked
for almost a decade. In February 2001 Nazdratenko was finally
“persuaded” by the Kremlin to send in his “voluntary” resignation.