Transcript of Putin's Press Conference

[Moderator] Please.
 

Election of regional leaders

[Question] Thank you. Russkoye Radio. Recently calls have been heard from the regions, from Moscow and Moscow politicians to change the existing system and move from electing governors to appointing them. Are you for or against appointing regional leaders?

[Putin] [sighs heavily, pauses] You know, when the decision was taken to set up the federal districts and appoint the presidential envoys to them, for some reason the concern arose that we were returning to super-centralization. Of course Russia does have its own unique history of state construction, its own history of administrative bodies, and of course, unfortunately, we do not have much experience of electing our leaders. You know, maybe at some stage we went too quickly on this. Maybe we should not have rushed into electing regional leaders. But now that we have already done this, I think it would be an even bigger mistake to go back.

Firstly, people are used to the fact that they decide who will be the first person in their territory. This is my first point. My second point is that the elected leader, whether he wants it or not, has a great moral personal responsibility to those who elected him. It is a very important factor. And finally, the third point. The Russian Federation is a multinational state. There are many ethnic formations within Russia, such as republics, territories and so on. We should take this circumstance into account. We should bear this in mind. And I am not at all sure that in some republics people would easily give up their right to elect their leaders. It would be absolutely bad to create various levels of bodies of power that are elected in some regions and appointed in others. We cannot fail to take all this into account. Moreover, I think that, taking into account the multinational nature of the Russian state, we must do everything we can to ensure that a representative of every people, nation or ethnic group, no matter how small it is, felt as comfortable as possible here and understood that the place where he lives, and Russia as a whole, is his motherland, and that he would not be better off somewhere else.

There should be certain specific issues which cannot be resolved without representatives of - I repeat - even the smallest nation. The number of those issues should not be very large and they should not hinder the development of the country as a single state. But there should be such issues. I think that the right to choose one's own leader is within this category of problems.

And finally, the last but not the least. We should not seek Soviet-type super centralization. I think it is an ineffective management system. We should improve our current system. I proceed from the fact that much has yet to be done to divide responsibilities and powers and to back up these powers by financial resources. And this is the area we are going to work in. Thank you all very much.