| Kumyks retained the post of Prime Minister of Dagestan The Dagestan parliament decided not to lag behind Chechnya in any way and at yesterday's plenary session approved a new prime minister. It was a builder by training, Shamil Zainalov, who had previously represented Dagestan legislators in the Federation Council for five years. The new appointment will not upset the existing balance of interests of the main ethnic groups in the republic: Mr. Zainalov, 59, is an ethnic Kumyk, like his predecessor Atay Aliyev, who has headed the cabinet of ministers of Dagestan since the fall of 2004. Actually, the Dagestani deputies have castled in the full sense of the word: Mr. Aliyev himself will now become a senator. His partner in the Federation Council, Dargin resident Ilyas Umakhanov, who represents the executive power of Dagestan in the upper house of the Federal Assembly, will continue to retain his seat.
The new prime minister of Dagestan is a native of Khasavyurt, a city dominated by Avar, Chechen and Kumyk populations. In recent years, Khasavyurt has been the center of organized opposition to the Makhachkala authorities, grouped around several leaders of Avar origin. The resignation of the head of the State Council of Dagestan, Magomedali Magomedov, and the early election of the Avar Mukhu Aliyev as president of the republic did not alleviate the severity of the existing contradictions, since the power, in fact, remained the same group that had formed over the long years of rule of the Dagestan “patriarch”.
It would be frivolous to assume that Mukhu Aliyev sees in the Khasavyurt origins of the new prime minister an opportunity to expand contacts with the opposition. Shamil Zainalov has long and firmly been associated with the same ruling group, but unlike ex-Prime Minister Atay Aliyev, who is close to Magomedali Magomedov himself, he rather belongs to the team of the new president Mukhu Aliyev. Until 1998, the new prime minister managed to work as deputy chairman of the Supreme Council of Dagestan, which at that time was headed by the current Dagestan president. Mr. Zainalov then went to work in the government: first in the Prime Minister's Secretariat, and then in the Ministry of Industry and Trade. In 2001, he was transferred to the Federation Council, which, as is known, is the “bench” for regional leaders.
It is important that the new prime minister of Dagestan, like his Chechen counterpart Ramzan Kadyrov, heads the Dagestan “United Russia”: it seems that the ruling party, as President Putin recommended to it, has already started forming the executive branch. True, Mr. Zainalov does not yet envisage radical changes within the cabinet of ministers and traditionally promises to revive the republic’s agriculture, especially vineyards. His appointment, apparently, slightly contradicts the scheme of transfer of power that was developed by political scientists Magomedali Magomedov - she did not foresee the departure of Atai Aliyev - but does not change the essence of the matter: Dagestan continues to be led by the former elite. And it is hardly worth assuming that it will be able to offer new solutions to the problems that have accumulated in the region, the main ones being corruption and the growth of religious extremism.
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Ramzan Kadyrov has chosen his successor
The Chechen parliament on Monday approved Odes Baysultanov, who previously worked as the manager of the affairs of the president and government of the republic, as first deputy prime minister. The apparatus of the President and Government of Chechnya is headed by Abdul-Kakhir Izrailov, who is considered a person very close to Mr. Kadyrov's family. Formally, Odes Baysultanov became the successor to Ramzan Kadyrov, who until his Saturday appointment as prime minister officially held the post of first deputy prime minister of Chechnya. Ivan SUKHOV |
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