The President of Tatarstan convinced his deputies

He will be elected president in March 2001

The State Council of Tatarstan made a fateful decision yesterday. Mintimer Shaimiev will be elected president of Tatarstan for a third term not in December, as Tatar legislators wanted, but in March, as required by law. Speaker of the Tatar Parliament Farid Mukhametshin said that this decision was made “to ensure the legal purity of the presidential elections.”

The first to express the opinion that the elections in December will not be entirely legitimate was the Chairman of the Central Election Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov. And the second is the President of Tatarstan himself. Yesterday morning he said that he would insist on postponing the elections from December of this year to March 2001. At the same time, the wise Tatar leader referred to the doubts of Alexander Veshnyakov and noted that he wanted to do everything “according to the constitution.” As Mr. Shaimiev stated, he will try to convince the State Council deputies of the need to comply with the letter of the Russian Constitution.

I tried and convinced. True, not everyone. As Mr. Mukhametshin happily reported, far fewer deputies voted for postponing the elections. There were those who refused their president his small request. However, the opposition was in the minority, and the election of Mr. Shaimiev as president of Tatarstan will take place in March next year.

Of course, the federal authorities would be happy to interpret such a decision as another victory for Vladimir Putin’s administrative reform. However, it seems that this is not entirely true. First of all, because State Council deputies agreed to change the election date only after they were convinced that nothing would prevent their president from running for a third term. As for Mr. Shaimiev himself, in his words, “a third term is a more solvable issue than if the people’s deputies of Tatarstan insisted on the previous decision.” Mr. Shaimiev is philosophical: “As for my participation in the elections, the time will come - we will decide.”

Vladimir ShPAK