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СМИ о мероприятиях

| 16 октября, 2013

Konstantin Kostin, ex-head of the Kremlin’s Department of Internal Policy is to draw up a consistent rating system to ensure the political viability of Governors

Vedomosti publication

By Lilia Biryukova

The Foundation for Civil Society Development, headed by former Kremlin official Konstantin Kostin, will present the first rating of the effectiveness of governors in December. The ratings will come out on a monthly basis. Kostin himself made this announcement yesterday. The political scientists who gathered in the FCSD offices yesterday made no secret of the fact that the new rating system should unite the work of key experts and do away with the reliance on financial resources of the governors themselves. Vyacheslav Volodin, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Vyacheslav Volodin has charged the FCSD experts with this undertaking.

A Kremlin source explained that governors are complaining that the ratings are false because they are expected to pay money for a good place in the lists. The ratings affect investment in the region so one can see why the new rating system of ranking the governors correctly by clear cut criteria based on sociological data is so necessary to the Kremlin.

In January 2013, Alexander Berdnikov, governor of the Altai Region revealed that he had been asked to pay 1.5 million roubles to secure a good place in a certain rating which was supposedly being compiled by secret order of the Kremlin. Kremlin

sources say that the governor of the Kuzbass region, Aman Tuleev has complained about the ratings from the Alexei Mukhin Centre for Political Information. Another source close to the Kremlin said that some governors and their staff are asking questions about the ‘Anti-Rating’ Agency of Political and Economic Communication (headed by a member of the General Council of ‘United Russia’ Dmitrii Orlov.)

The experts gathered in the FDCS offices concluded that there were a number of reasons why unfair ratings based on monetary contributions were happening:

a) disreputable organisations are compiling the ratings

b) lack of experience in studying regional problems

c) abundance of factual errors

d) speculation on supposed connections with the Kremlin

Kostin concluded that the introduction of the new ratings system could cause a panic among the local political elite and so it would be to everyone’s advantage to force these pseudo experts out of the market and develop a transparent rating system.

Dmitrii Orlov responded to the accusations by claiming: ‘My system is one of the most transparent out there. I am the one who is insisting that the methodology here should be clear cut and with clear criteria.’ He insists that his rating system is accepted by both the elite and the expert community and contains no corrupt elements. He also claims that there have been no public complaints about him. He added that the competition (to compile ratings) is fierce and new players have appeared such as FDCS which is now attempting to monopolise the market – in particular by coming out with a monthly rating report. But they are not going to succeed he says, warning that one should not be drawing the Kremlin into attempts to monopolise the market.

Clearly the ‘Anti-Rating’ moniker is causing some hackles to rise. Mukhin says that people don’t like it when supposed flaws are highlighted. These claims are vague he says, adding that it is unethical to criticise the work of his colleagues in this way.

But Leonid Davidov, a member of the Public Chamber said that there are some ratings whose forecasts have proved their worth but they are compromised by pseudo experts who demand money from governors by hinting at their close links to the Kremlin.