President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on his resignation at will Governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug Igor Koshin. The latter only managed to serve as head of the region for 3 years, and received such an appointment, according to rumors, thanks to the patronage of Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko. It was the Nenets Autonomous Okrug that was represented in the Senate by the late Vadim Tyulpanov. Whose death may have brought the governor's resignation closer.
On Thursday, September 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin accepted the resignation of the Governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug Igor Koshin. Alexander Tsybulsky was appointed acting governor. The latter has worked in the Ministry of Economic Development since 2013, and since 2014 as deputy minister. Previously, Tsybulsky worked at the Ministry of Regional Development.
Igor Koshin worked as governor for exactly 3 years - from September 20, 2014. Before that, he represented the Assembly of Deputies of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug in the Federation Council, and until 2012 he was the speaker of the regional parliament. It is believed that Koshin was lobbied for the position of governor by the Speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko, whose niece he is allegedly married to. Since 2014, Vadim Tyulpanov has become a senator from the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, appointed by the governor of the region.
According to the official reason for Igor Koshin’s resignation, he voluntarily left his position in connection with the transition to new job. However, his resignation, like the resignation of the heads of a number of other subjects of the federation, last days federal media such as Kommersant, Dozhd and RBC predicted.
Causes:
It was believed that in the oil-rich Nenets Autonomous Region (by the way, very few inhabitants: most of them are nomadic reindeer herders, and the total population is about 40 thousand people), Igor Koshin was a protege of the Lukoil company, which owns the Prirazlomnaya oil platform in the region. Now Lukoil is being squeezed out by Rosneft in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The interests of which, it is believed, will be defended by the new governor Alexander Tsybulsky. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak is called his patron.
Igor Koshin’s career rise is believed to be due to the fact that his candidacy was lobbied by Valentina Matvienko, whom they met at the Federation Council. It was previously mentioned that Koshin was rumored to be married to her niece. Since the region was considered “its own” in the upper house of parliament, Vadim Tyulpanov, who was right hand Matvienko. In the Senate, he headed the Committee on Rules, a key department from a hardware point of view, responsible for all resignations, declarations, abdications, etc. It was assumed that Koshin, as a young and energetic governor, would remain in his post for a long time, which, in turn, would guarantee a quiet existence in the Federation Council for Tyulpanov himself.
However, in April, Vadim Tyulpanov died tragically in an accident. Which partially weakened Igor Koshin - if previously the employment of Vadim Tyulpanov, whose fate Valentina Matvienko felt responsible for his fate, depended on him, now the governor has lost this trump card. Accordingly, the speaker of the Federation Council also partially lost interest in him.
Igor Koshin spent only three years as governor. That is, even if I wanted to, I still wouldn’t have time to ruin it Agriculture, break roads, etc. (actually, in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, of course, it is not, has never been and is not a fact that there will ever be farms with roads). The reason for his dismissal was a conflict with oil companies. And under these conditions, it cannot be ruled out that if Vadim Tyulpanov were alive now, he, and especially Matvienko, would have made efforts in advance to resolve the conflict and keep Koshin in his post. And it is possible that they would have succeeded.
Consequences:
The new governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and his entourage will most likely no longer have any influence on St. Petersburg politics.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the early termination of the powers of the Governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug Igor Koshin, reports Kremlin website .
“Accept the resignation of the Governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug I.V. Koshin at his own request,” the text of the decree says.
By the same decree, the president appointed Alexander Tsybulsky as acting head of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Until recently, he served as Deputy Minister of Economic Development.
There is no decree on Koshin’s appointment to another job on the Kremlin website. However, in his address to the district administration staff and deputies of the NAO parliament, he stated that he had decided to resign “in connection with the transition to a new place of work.”
Koshin also expressed satisfaction with the work done: “When I became governor, the oil market had already begun to become feverish, and I was at a crossroads - to continue budget “distributions” that would soon end, or to change the system, making it, if not independent from oil, then at least sustainable to fluctuations in its value. I chose the second path and do not regret anything."
Koshin's resignation was expected. It was predicted by the Kommersant newspaper at the beginning of the week. The publication reported that a total of 10 regional heads could lose their posts. In a number of them, changes have already taken place. Earlier this week, the heads of four regions resigned. On September 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the early termination of powers of the governor of the Samara region Nikolai Merkushkin, September 26 - on the early termination of powers of the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region Valeria Shantseva. In both cases the wording “of one's own free will” was used.
On September 27, Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Viktor Tolokonsky and the head of Dagestan announced their resignation Ramazan Abdulatipov. The Kremlin has not yet published decrees on their resignation.
The next "out" media called Koshina. Thus, the RBC publication, citing a federal official, noted that “the federal center drew the attention of the head of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug to problems with the implementation of the May presidential decrees on increasing salaries for public sector employees and the low pace of construction of social facilities in the autonomous region.” The Kremlin website contains a transcript of Koshin’s meeting with Putin in February 2016. Then the president demanded that the governor set a deadline for fully solving the problems associated with the provision of kindergartens in the region.
The list of potential “retirees” also includes leaders of the Primorsky and Altai territories, North Ossetia, Magadan, Vladimir, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Ivanovo, and Murmansk regions.
The Kremlin yesterday called the rotation process in the gubernatorial corps an absolutely normal and popular phenomenon. Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov explained that the President is following the path of updating the governor's corps, and the former regional leaders are being replaced by "young" and "broad-profile" specialists.
Rejuvenation of governors
Koshin has headed the Nenets Autonomous Okrug since February 2014. He replaced Igor Fedorov as head of the region.
On February 22, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin, by decree, appointed Koshin as acting governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. On September 14, 2014, he was elected to the position of governor of the region. On September 20 of the same year, Koshin officially took office.
Later (at the beginning of 2015), the election legislation for a number of constituent entities of the Russian Federation was changed. These changes also apply to the system of elections for the governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Now the governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug will be elected by the legislative assembly from three candidates nominated by the President of Russia, to whom they, in turn, will be proposed by the governor of the Arkhangelsk region.
Before taking office as governor, Koshin served as a member of the Federation Council from the Legislative Assembly of the Nenets Okrug and worked on the chamber’s regulations committee.
In the rating of the effectiveness of heads of Russian regions, compiled by the Civil Society Development Foundation and published in June 2016, he was included in the second group of heads of constituent entities of the Russian Federation (“high rating”). He took 32nd place, receiving 69 points. The total amount of Koshin’s declared income for 2016 was 11 million 445 thousand rubles, TASS reports.
The media note that Koshin was a young governor. He is only 43 years old. However, Tsybulsky, who replaced him, is even younger (he is 38).
Until recently, Tsybulsky served as Deputy Minister of Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin, who is the youngest minister of the Russian government (he took office at 34 years old). According to TASS, Tsybulsky oversaw issues of strategic and territorial planning, cross-border and international interregional cooperation, as well as socio-economic development of the Arctic territories.
Tsybulsky has already told reporters that he will travel to the region in the near future. “The first task is to get to know the region, the people and understand what to do in the near future... I will go (to the region) in the near future,” he said (quoted by TASS).
Tsybulsky added that he would definitely analyze the strategy that the region had. “And I am sure that the region has developed and developed in the right direction; if any adjustments are required, we will definitely make them based on the federal experience that we have,” the agency’s interlocutor explained.
Alexander Tsybulsky born July 15, 1979 in Moscow. Graduated from the Military University of the Ministry of Defense and the Moscow Institute of International Business.
In 2013-2014 - Director of the Department of Interaction with Authorities of the Customs Union and Economic Cooperation with CIS Countries of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, since November 19, 2014 - Deputy Minister of Economic Development.
Social policy of the head of the region, corruption or the confrontation between Lukoil and Rosneft?
From sources in the Kremlin it became known that the optimistic forecasts of the Nenets governor about maintaining his post did not come true: he is vacating the post of head of the region. Experts give different versions of the reasons for the resignation: some talk about the social tension that arose in the region as a result of cuts in social programs; someone considers Igor Koshin to be a protégé of Lukoil and talks about the competition between Vagit Alikperov and Igor Sechin, in whose confrontation Igor Koshin became the bargaining chip.
Fifteen billion - and it's all down the drain?
Fifteen billion is the annual budget of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the smallest subject Russian Federation. At one time, Igor Koshin made a maxim that the Nenets Autonomous Okrug reminds him of a golden, clumsy barge: work should be in full swing around and construction ringing, but in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug there should be silence. We need to fix everything. And in an interview with journalists, he said: “My task is to make the region economically resistant to changes in the hydrocarbon market. But any reform is a way out of the comfort zone. Especially when this comfort was formed during a period of high oil prices and the district lived with billions of dollars in account balances.” But get out of your comfort zone. Yesterday he fought off journalists, claiming that he was working “as usual”, and today he is leaving his post.
Igor Koshin has led the region since 2014 and, by an unfortunate coincidence, it was during these three years that the region’s income decreased by a third. Taking into account the size of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug’s budget, it is 5 billion, which, according to the official version, is due to the fall in oil prices. And everything would have been fine, but in 2017 a scandal broke out in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug: against the backdrop of falling incomes, the Nenets authorities ordered vacation. The motivation was simple: the fall in income caused a reduction in salaries, and this was sort of like compensation for lost income. At the same time, other public sector employees did not receive such attention from the governor. But the region did not wait for new investors: despite the assurances of the Nenets authorities that the situation is improving and that the budget in terms of growth rates is one of the best in the country, investors are fleeing from the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. In 2015, it was possible to attract 115 billion investments, and in 2016 - only 85 billion, and in 2017, the ex-governor only hoped that it would be possible to reach the pre-crisis level.
Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the resignation of the Governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO) Igor Koshin. Mr. Koshin led the region for three years. Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Alexander Tsybulsky has been appointed acting governor.
Igor Koshin became the third governor whom Vladimir Putin dismissed since the beginning of the week. The decree is posted on the official Kremlin website. Mr. Koshin led the NAO for three years: he was appointed acting governor in February 2014, and in September he was elected in direct elections (he received 76.7% of the votes). Mr. Koshin’s career has been connected with the Nenets Autonomous Okrug for the last 17 years. During this time, he was repeatedly elected as a deputy of the Assembly of Deputies of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, participated in the elections of the head of Naryan-Mar and the head of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (lost in the second round in January 2005). He headed the parliament of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug from 2005 to 2012. From 2012 to 2014, he represented the region in the Federation Council.
“All these three years I woke up with the price of a barrel of oil on my phone screen. Because for our region these figures mean a lot - the opportunity to maintain a huge budget system, which employs 75% of the region’s residents,” Igor Koshin told Kommersant. “When I became governor, the oil market had already begun to become feverish, and I was at a crossroads - to continue budget “distributions” that would soon end, or to change the system, making it, if not independent from oil, then at least resistant to fluctuations in its value. I chose the second path and I don’t regret anything,” says the former governor. According to him, “nobody likes reforms, but everyone wants to benefit from their results. I’m glad that these results will remain after me.”
In his address to the district administration staff and deputies of the parliament of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Igor Koshin said that he had decided to resign “in connection with the transition to a new place of work.”
“We have laid the foundation, it’s up to you to build further, I ask you to unite and move on so that our district is a territory where people can live comfortably and joyfully,” said Mr. Koshin, emphasizing that it was a “great honor” for him to lead “his native Nenets district "
Deputy Minister of Economic Development Alexander Tsybulsky was appointed acting governor. Note that at the beginning of 2015, the legislation for the so-called nesting doll regions was changed. Now the governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug will be elected by the legislative assembly from three candidates nominated by the president, to whom they, in turn, will be proposed by the governor of the Arkhangelsk region, Igor Orlov.
Yesterday, the leaders of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Viktor Tolokonsky, and the leaders of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov, announced their resignation as governors. However, presidential decrees on their resignations have not yet been published. Also, as Kommersant previously reported, resignations of governors can be expected in the near future. Murmansk region Marina Kovtun, Ivanovo region Pavel Konkov, Omsk region Viktor Nazarov. They all deny the upcoming resignation.
Maria-Louise Tirmaste, Sofia Samokhina