The Administration of the President: Personnel shuffling does not change anything while the trumps are still in the former hands

Nikolai Burov

Summary

The year 2014 became a year of serious personnel trials for the Administration of the President (AP). The agency had faced 25% staff cuts which dramatically complicated its work due to the preservation of all previous functions. One of the reform’s results became a kind of erosion of the ‘power vertical’ which is connected with mechanical unification of local authorities’ departments responsible for different spheres (culture with ideology and youth affairs, sports with education, housing and community amenities with thee energy sector). The AP continued to become more and more isolated from the local elites. The changes of president’s assistants – chief inspectors in a region are Alexander Lukashenko’s attempts to oppose this process. Besides, the AP tends to employ young and initiative managers which are able to finish the process of transition from the socially-oriented economy to a capitalist economy of the Chinese type.

Trends:

Personnel decides nothing

The year 2013 became a year of significant personnel decisions for the AP. The personnel issue arose in the year 2011 when the AP and the Belarusian administration model in general had demonstrated their low effectiveness during the unfolding crisis.

At the beginning of the year 2013 the commission under the supervision by Natalya Petkevich and Andrey Kobiakov finished its work and presented its suggestions on public administration system optimization to the Head of State. According to the predictions of almost all experts and in spite of the rather interesting and serious proposals the whole reform with the optimization was reduced to ordinary 25–30% cuts of public officials and employees.

It should be noted that in spite of widely spread stereotypes before the reform Belarus did not have too many people with the status of ‘public official’ (a little over 57 thousand positions). Nevertheless, personnel cuts in the AP itself were rather unexpected for many experts. This agency did not enjoy a great number of employees (about 170 positions), and after staff cuts it has about 130 positions. This number affects significantly the quality of the AP’s work, especially taking into consideration the fact that all important national-level documents are to be approved by the AP.

Formally, the AP includes a number of departments and sections which are responsible for very different spheres and activities. Nevertheless, in spite of the ‘big titles’, these departments have usually a little number of employees and not all of them are specialists in those spheres which they are responsible for. The process of personnel cuts reflected the nature of developed patron-client relations which exist in the public administration system in Belarus. Dismissal of local public employees resulted in dismissal of their patrons in higher public agencies and vice versa. The struggle between different groups in the AP itself in many cases affected the concrete decision-making and reasoning in staff cuts in different regions and spheres.

A kind of erosion of the ‘power vertical’ and simultaneous strengthening of the president’s assistant, Head of the Chief Ideological Department Mr. Vsevolod Yanchevsky deserve mentioning among the significant results of the reform. This occurred due to unification of ideological work, youth policy and culture administration within the frames of one department in the system of local authorities agencies. Personnel issues in these united departments are supervised by the Chief Ideological Department, thus, increasing the administrative weight of Mr. Yanchevsky. The changes among the high-ranking officials in the Ministry of Communications and Informatization in February, 2014 are also Mr. Yanchevsky’s great success which allowed him to strengthen his influence in this important sphere.

In spite of the ‘optimizatiom’, the situation in human resource management appeared to be worse. President Lukashenko himself had to admit this fact. For example, in November 2013 the AP in cooperation with Minsk oblispolkom (the government of Minsk region) did not manage to organize a demonstrative visit of the president to JSC ‘Borisovdrev’. It is worth mentioning that the president’s reaction was driven not only by the predictable failure of the enterprise’s and the whole industry sector’s modernization program but also by the poor maintenance of the enterprise’s territory, which can be considered as breaking even the Soviet rules of the nomenklatura’s behavior in the Era of Stagnation in the 1970s and 1980s.

The results of the president’s visit are also very eloquent. Actually, Alexander Lukashenko’s threats were carried out only in relation to AP employees: a deputy head of the AP, Andrey Tur, was dismissed and the head of the AP, Andrey Kobiakov gained a strict punitive reprimand.1 While the head of Minsk region government Boris Batura was fired, his dismissal did not lead to any other negative effects for him. The threat against one deputy Prime-minister Vladimir Semashko was not carried out. This situation demonstrated very clearly the trend identified after the results of 2012: the AP appears in growing isolation whereas the nomenklatura is strengthening its position with the help of different sources, including foreign ones.

It is no secret that Boris Batura and especially Vladimir Semashko maintain close relations with certain business and political circles in Russia. As a result, Alexander Lukashenko managed to carry out all his threats only against the employees of his own Administration. Andrey Tur’s dismissal was not unexpected for the Belarusian establishment. Many experts argue that Andrey Kobiakov gained strict punitive reprimand due to his excessive public promotions as the head of a working group on construction problems. Such growing popularity caused the president’s negative reaction. Besides, in his activity Kobiakov focuses mainly on economic issues while other spheres, such as organizational, personnel and ideological issues are practically outside his attention.

The other significant event which proves the progressively developing crisis in the personnel sphere is the president’s meeting on the problems in the construction sphere and on the improving of work with administrative personnel which was held on December 10, 2013. The Head of State had to admit that successful managers did not want to work in the public administration system and more and more often random people got into it. The results of the meeting demonstrated that the AP, which is actually the main agency responsible for personnel affairs, did not have any clear vision on how to solve this problem which has already become apparent for the whole Belarusian society.

All the President’s Men

It is not a secret for Alexander Lukashenko that the effectiveness of the public administration apparatus is decreasing as well as the fact that the Belarusian model is developing towards oligarchic capitalism. It is one of the reasons of the president’s continuous attempts to renew the personnel staff at least in his own Administration in order to prevent further strengthening of the nomenklatura’s positions and growing grievances among people. It appears that the Head of State attempts to stake on relatively young and initiative civil servants, sometimes even breaking the stereotypes about recruiting to the highest ranks in the Belarusian public administration system. In this relation the further strengthening of Vsevolod Yanchevsky’s positions should be mentioned.

The line-up of president’s assistants was also dramatically changed. For example, the former Belarusian ambassador to Kazakhstan Valery Bryliov became the Assistant on foreign policy due to Valentin Rybakov’s appointment as a Deputy Head of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. There is no doubt that the professional qualities of Bryliov are lower than that of Rybakov’s. This decision became a logical continuation of the process of weakening the AP’s influence on the foreign policy and MOFA position’s strengthening after Vladimir Makey’s appointment as the Head of this agency. There is an apparent trend of decreasing the role and importance of the AP’s Department of foreign policy which is in lager extent beginning to carry out technical functions.

A great interest lays in the personality of the president’s new assistant on economic issues Kiryl Rudy. Some experts understood his appointment as an indicator of serious transformation in the economic policy of the state. However, these transformations were de-facto observed much earlier when after the crisis of 2011 the AP had initiated public discussions on the necessity to reduce socially oriented policy. There are no doubts in the AP on the necessity of such changes in the situation which is similar to the state of bankruptcy of the former social and economic model and all the discussions are devoted to the frames and peculiarities of the new policy.

In this relation the Belarusian government has never hidden its interest to the PRC’s experience. In the opinion of many Belarusian officials, this experience will allow to combine high productivity and efficiency of labor with minimal social guarantees. Simultaneously, Kiryl Rudy’s appointment is a great success of the Chinese lobby in strengthening its positions in the Belarusian establishment. It is not a secret that such officials as Anatoly Tozik, Boris Batura and (what concerns the AP) Vsevolod Yanchevsky and Kiryl Rudy do not practically hide their personal interests in development of the cooperation between Belarus and China. Moreover, as many experts emphasize, this cooperation is developing according to the Chinese scenario and in the interests of the PRC. Kiryl Rudy himself during his diplomatic mission in China was maintaining close cooperation with the Belarus-China joint enterprise ‘Bel Huawei Technologies’. Nevertheless, the president’s new assistant has not become an engine for any real far-reaching changes in the social and economic spheres. However, due to Kiryl Rudy’s personal participation such innovations as toll roads, transport taxes, indexation of house and utility services prices and other measures on reducing the socially-oriented policy were introduced. While mentioning Kiryl Rudy’s name, it is necessary to remember that his predecessor, Piotr Prokopovich, did not retire but was appointed as a member of the Council of Ministers where, besides his office of a deputy prime-minister, he holds about twenty other positions. This is an eloquent testimony of the ‘perspectives’ for any changes in the economic policy in the country.

The appointment of one Member of Parliament Vladimir Kravtsov as the Head of Hrodna region government (oblispolkom) is an important indicator for some major changes in the ways of personnel recruiting. Previously, the Belarusian Parliament was considered as a place for honorable retirement and did not play a role of a starting position for a significant career in the public administration system.

The practically complete rotation of the president’s assistants – chief inspectors in the country’s regions is among other important personnel changes. For example, on February, 28 Anatoly Lis and Fiodor Domotenko were appointed as Chief inspectors in the Homiel region and Minsk city respectively; on June, 10 Dmitry Goborov and Vladimir Domanevsky were appointed as Chief inspectors in Brest and Hrodna regions respectively. At the end of 2013 the former Head of the President’s affairs, who previously had been scandalously dismissed, Nikolay Korbut was appointed as the president’s assistant – chief inspector in Minsk region without any information in the mass-media.2 Such personnel rotation is not accidental and proves the very strong positions of the governors (heads of the oblispolkoms) (the president has managed to dismiss only one of them) who either do not manage to cooperate with their supervisors from the AP or, vice versa, subdue them to their influence.

These rotations have confirmed one more trend which had been previously identified by experts: the Head of State does not have a real labor pool. New appointed people are either weak in terms of their influence (the head of Hrodna region Vladimir Kravtsov has apparently much less influence than the other governors) or appointed due to the active lobby by internal or external (which is disturbing) forces (as Kiryl Rudy). Concerning the return of old staff, the appointment of Viktor Sheyman as the Head of the President’s Affairs in January 2013 is especially indicative. After his appointment, Viktor Sheyman almost completely changed the personnel of his department. Alongside with his new functions, the president’s old companion and friend has preserved his supervision over the relations between Belarus and Latin America.

Conclusion

The year 2013 confirmed the trend of the general governability crisis in the Republic of Belarus which had been previously identified by many analysts. The country faces a process of gradual formation of fully fledged oligarchic capitalism which is strengthened by clan and/or relative relations and is based on a significant external support. In these frames the Administration of the president not only looses the real mechanisms of control but also looses its function of mediator between different groups of the Belarusian establishment.

In the period discussed a president’s assistant, Head of the Chief Ideological Department Vsevolod Yanchevsky managed not only to increase his influence and to expand it over some close spheres (culture and in 2014 communications) but also gained a great influence over the first deputy Head of the AP Alexander Radkov. Viktor Sheyman plays a role of a counterbalance to Vsevolod Yanchevsky’s growing influence.

In general, the AP has been trying (till now unsuccessfully) to develop a new strategy of its activities in the frames of oligarchic capitalism, actual bankruptcy of the Belarusian socially oriented model, limited field for foreign policy maneuvering and serious personnel deficit. It can be suggested that in 2015, after the presidential elections the AP would have to reject the policy of maneuvering between the attempts to preserve the previous methods of working and the necessity to adapt to the new frames in order to develop a new strategy of its activities.