During his recent speech to Russia’s Federal Assembly, President Dmitri Medvedev, announced that an as-yet-unnamed official would be invested with ‘personal responsibility’ for the Northern Caucasus sometime in the near future. Naturally, there has been some speculation as to whom the president might choose to discharge this onerous duty. One possible candidate is Dmitri Kozak, a man with considerable experience of the region and its complexities. Kozak has some interesting ideas on how the economic situation in the Northern Caucasus might be improved – ideas that might well appeal to a president convinced of the utility of innovation.

BACKGROUND: On November 11, President Dmitri Medvedev delivered his annual address to Russia’s Federal Assembly. During his speech, the president devoted a considerable amount of time to addressing the deteriorating security situation in the Northern Caucasus. The state of affairs in this particular region, Medvedev declared, is Russia’s ‘most serious, domestic political problem’. The president went on to identify corruption, ‘cronyism’, as well as the region’s underperforming economy as primary reasons why the federal government has thus far failed to stabilize the situation there.

This portion of Medvedev’s speech was noteworthy for its candour, if not for the originality of its content. The President spoke frankly about the misappropriation of federal funding by corrupt local officials; he mentioned the chronic levels of unemployment in Chechnya and Ingushetia; he referred to the plight of the many thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) throughout the region. Among the solutions for correcting these disagreeable regional phenomena, the president cited the need to create a more favourable investment climate in the region; greater economic investment in local economies (from both public and private sources); the need for more local entrepreneurship; and the vital need for a higher quality of education for the young people of the region.

Medvedev also announced his intention to nominate a state official who would be entrusted with ‘personal responsibility’ for overseeing the situation in the Northern Caucasus. While President Medvedev is perhaps to be commended for offering a sober-minded analysis of the situation in the Northern Caucasus, this is not the first time a high-ranking Russian official has presented such an analysis; nor is there anything original in Medvedev’s recommendations for curing the region’s various social, political and economic ills.

In the summer of 2004, Dmitri Kozak, the newly-appointed presidential representative to the Southern Federal District (YuFO) presented a report to then-President Vladimir Putin which identified a ‘systemic crisis of government’ in the Northern Caucasus. According to Kozak’s findings, this ‘systemic crisis’ had arisen as a direct result of the participation of ‘corporate clan associations’ in local government (the political embodiment of the ‘cronyism’ Medvedev referred to on November 11). Unsurprisingly, the region’s dismal economic situation was flagged as a cause for concern. Kozak also predicted a ‘sharp growth’ in ‘radicalism and extremism’ and correctly singled out Dagestan as a republic in danger of becoming seriously destabilised in the near future.

Broadly speaking, the contents of the 2005 ‘Kozak Report’ and the remarks made by Medvedev concerning the Northern Caucasus on November 11 are remarkably congruent. This apparent congruency may well be a prelude to a new collaboration between Medvedev and Kozak directed at solving, or at least alleviating, the difficult situation in the Northern Caucasus.

IMPLICATIONS: Medvedev’s insistence that there must be ‘a single individual who will be personally responsible for the situation in the region’ appears rather specious given that such an individual is already in situ – Medvedev’s plenipotentiary representative to YuFO, Vladimir Ustinov. Does this initiative therefore herald the departure of the plenipotentiary institution, or Ustinov personally, or both? Medvedev took care to mention that the person he had in mind for this responsibility would have to be ‘someone with enough authority to effectively coordinate work in this area’. In other words, Medvedev requires someone with the resolve and resourcefulness to successfully tackle the outstanding problems in the region. His pointed reference to ‘someone with enough authority’ implies that Medvedev is also seeking a candidate both willing and able to stand up to the most powerful political actor native to the region: the influential president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Given that Medvedev foresees his appointee overseeing the Northern Caucasus specifically, it seems doubtful that he would dispense entirely with the format of the plenipotentiary office as it has evolved in the southern federal district over the past nine and a half years. For example, it is unlikely that he would abolish the plenipotentiary office and place responsibility for the Northern Caucasus under the remit of the Ministry for Regional Affairs. Instead, it is probable that Medvedev will replace Ustinov with a ‘new broom’ and simply re-brand the plenipotentiary office (as ‘The Ministry for North Caucasian Affairs’ perhaps), possibly even surrendering his immediate purview over this ‘new’ institution to the federal government.

Such a cosmetic overhaul would certainly be less costly than setting up a new administrative organ from scratch, a not insignificant consideration for decision makers in light of prevailing economic circumstances. But who does Medvedev have in mind to occupy this challenging post? Dmitri Kozak, currently a deputy prime minister in the Russian government, is the probably the most viable candidate.

As a former plenipotentiary representative to YuFO, Kozak is extremely well-versed in the complex interplay of politics, economics, culture and society in the Northern Caucasus. It should also be noted that Kozak’s tenure was distinguished by the sometimes confrontational relationship he enjoyed with Ramzan Kadyrov.

However, his experience and his sceptical attitude toward Kadyrov are not the only qualities that commend Kozak for this post. He is also a man of ideas, and has clearly not lost touch with the situation in the Northern Caucasus. This was demonstrated this past September when Kozak upbraided the governments of the region for failing to reduce their economic dependency on the federal budget. ‘This is impermissible,’ he insisted, ‘especially in this period, which is not simple from an economic point of view.’

CONCLUSIONS: For many years, Kozak has ploughed a lone political furrow by insisting that the method by which federal subsidies are disbursed to governments in the Northern Caucasus (and governments in other regions) is wholly unviable. Kozak has proposed an incentivized program of federal subsidization whereby regional leaders who consistently display good budgetary responsibility and economic innovation would receive significantly more federal investment in their jurisdictions than leaders who are profligate with their budgetary allowance. Against a backdrop of economic recession, these ideas, based on a code of fiscal prudence at both national and regional levels, might be expected to find traction with Medvedev and his advisors. Kozak is by no means the sole candidate for this post; perhaps a half dozen other politicians have been mentioned alongside him as possible appointees to this new post. He is, however, the only credible candidate mooted that possesses previous experience of managing a post with such wide-ranging responsibilities. He is also the only candidate who has put forth ideas of substance on how best to tackle the situation in the Northern Caucasus.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Kevin Daniel Leahy holds a postgraduate degree from University College Cork, Ireland.