Outgoing ministers' ratings

According to the results of the integrated rating, the leader is Alexei Kudrin. The results are the following: the first five ministers are Alexei Kudrin, Sergei Shoigu, Sergei Lavrov, Igor Shuvalov and Igor Sechin.

The efficiency rating is headed by Sergei Lavrov, the next four places went to Alexei Kudrin, Sergei Shoigu, Elvira Nabbiullina and Igor Shuvalov. The most popular of the outgoing Ministers is Sergei Shoigu, more than Kudrin, Sergei Lavrov, Igor Shuvalov and Dmitry Kozak. Igor Sechin is the leader of the influence rating, after him come Alexei Kudrin, Igor Shuvalov, Sergei Shoigu and Anatoliy Serdyukov. As for the outsiders of the integrated rating, Sergei Smatko, Alexander Avdeev and Viktor Basargin found themselves in this position (the Ministers of Culture, Energy and Regional Development).

Tatyana Felgengauer, ‘Echo of Moscow’ radio anchorwoman

80 experts took part in compiling the rating in total. We had three nominations:  influence, efficiency and popularity. Each list was created by a different set of experts, as we needed people who really understand what makes a Minister efficient or influential. We evaluated the consequence of a Minister according to his ability to influence our state’s top officials – the PM and the President. The popularity was evaluated by the chief editors of popular media (TV, radio and Internet). Konstantin Ernst and other figures of various views were among them. Some influential state officials and even presidential candidates took part in our expert groups. Presidential Adviser Arkadiy Dvorkovich, Mikhail Prokhorov, Mr Mironov and Valentina Matviyenko took part in drawing the ‘consequence rating’. As for the Ministers’ efficiency and the current state of affairs in their ‘domains’, we decided that those who have worked in the government are the most qualified people to evaluate this indicator. You can see that there are a lot of ex-Ministers and vice-PMs on the expert list, and there’s even one ex-PM (I’m talking about Mikhail Kosyanov).

Vladimir Gurevich, the chief editor of the newspaper ‘Moscow News’ 

The very idea of such a rating appeared after the ‘Echo of Moscow’ radio, RIA Novosti and back then the ‘Ogonyok’ newspaper published the rating of the 100 most influential women of Russia. It drew much attention, so we decided to create a rating of outgoing Ministers as well. The Cabinet has been in existence for 4 years, but if you look closer you’ll see that many of the rating’s participants have occupied their posts for much longer. And if you consider, for example, the work of Dmitry Kozak, it’s very hard to separate his job in the administration and his work done in the Caucasus and other previous jobs. We also kept the ministers’ previous occupations in mind while compiling the rating. Some of them had really long careers in their current posts. We have a section here – “Predecessors”. The only one who doesn’t have a predecessor is Shoigu, as he has headed the Ministry of Emergency Situations ever since it was created. We also tried to find the predecessors of current vice-PMs, and named them nominally, but in fact these offices don’t have any direct predecessors. Ministries changed as well. So it’s very interesting, too… for example, one of the so-called predecessors of Igor Shuvalov is Yegor Gaidar – as far as the responsibilities are concerned. We analyzed the careers of these people, but the most interesting topic for us was the past 4 years. As for Kudrin’s first place… even though we asked the experts to focus on the candidates’ activities in the framework of their ministerial offices, I think in this case they were also influenced by his activities outside of his office. We compared our expert rating to the public opinion poll, and it turns out that Shoigu and Lavrov are highly esteemed figures according both to the experts and to the general population. As for Andrei Fursenko, who is the worst according to the poll, experts put him 15th place in popularity rating, which is not so bad. So you see that experts and ordinary people don’t always agree on everything.

Yuri Kobaladze, a member of Special Council for Foreign Policy and State Security

The Minister of Education, so despised by the general population, is, in my opinion, one of the smartest and most efficient ministers. And of course, the personal opinion of an expert, such as myself, played a certain part in the outcome.

Oleg Sysuyev, first deputy of the head of the board of directors of Alpha-group, ex-Deputy of the Russian Government 

I viewed this rating of efficiency as the ability of the ministers to act as major political figures, as high-ranking managers, and not as lobbyists with great resources. And as major political figures they should have been able to create institutions, to reform and reshape the institutions they were put in charge of. Unfortunately, the current government doesn’t encourage such a type of truly important activity fit for a Minister. It encourages lobbying, obedience, and inefficient management. So many ministers are efficient in this second sense. In the first sense that I’ve mentioned the most efficient Minister is Fursenko, who tried to reshape the institution he headed, as it was totally inefficient. And he got what was coming for it.

As for Sergei Shoigu, he is a very capable person, a good manager – and a good lobbyist, so he doesn’t have to ‘waste’ his efforts on creating new institutions. This is our political reality. In a state where a presidential candidate calls everyone to oppose inner and foreign enemies a Minister of Emergency Situations is quiet useful”.

Public activist Alexei Chadayev suggested that the most interesting process that will take place after the presidential elections will be the formation of the new Cabinet. “I should remind you that in Russia there’s no way that a public politician gets any real power. But the opposite evolution is quite possible. The major part of pro-governmental and opposition political figures have occupied any given state service some time ago. So I think it’s interesting to regard the future political potential of the outgoing Ministers. The fact that Mr Kudrin, even though he is no longer in the Cabinet and if Medvedev becomes PM he’ll never get their again, won the first place in the rating is symptomatic. Why won’t this most efficient manager be able to find himself a place in the new government? It’s an interesting question… The situation with Shoigu is also paradoxical: his Ministry has a very narrow field of competence. But his long-term occupation of the office, his efficient media-image (he is regularly shown saving kids, etc.), his long-term service as the ‘face’ of the ruling party – all that indicates that his influence is more political that it is due to his efficient management skills. The same can be said about Lavrov. Peole are interested in foreign politics, in the global developments and crises, even though it has nothing to do with their everyday lives. Lavrov’s carrier went uphill back when he was Russian representative to the UN and prved himself to be a person capable of saying “No!” to the international political assembly. And it is very important for the people. Experts tried to balance the indicators of ‘consequence’ and ‘efficiency’, but still chose to pay more attention to political skills rather than management capabilities of the rating’s participants”.