Translated material
War of North and South
Interethnic contradictions in Dagestan took the form of a political struggle against criminal bias
Preparations for the elections to the People's Assembly of Dagestan, scheduled for March 11, continue to develop in the action genre . On Wednesday evening, the head of the republican branch of the Patriots of Russia party, Eduard Khidirov (pictured) , was seriously wounded in Makhachkala. The car in which he was traveling with his wife and driver was machine-gunned. Mr. Khidirov himself was wounded in the head, chest and shoulder, and is in intensive care. The driver received a non-dangerous wound in the back; the politician’s wife escaped with shock. This is not the first criminal incident at the start of the election campaign in Dagestan. In January of this year, the deputy head of the regional branch of the Union of Right Forces, Magomed Omarmagomedov, disappeared in the Kizlyar region, and the republican prosecutor's office believes that it is investigating the murder. Patriots leader Gennady Semigin has no doubt that the reason for the assassination attempt on Mr. Khidirov is related to his participation in the elections.The Patriots are one of six parties allowed to participate in the fight for seats in the People's Assembly. The new parliament of Dagestan will consist of 72 deputies instead of the current 121 and will be elected exclusively by party lists. Each party registered a republican list and lists for each of the 53 municipalities. The law allowed the election commission to remove a party from the race if at least one of the 53 regional groups recuses itself. The communists and the Union of Right Forces fell into the trap. But the communists managed to prove that the statements of self-recusal were written under pressure, and the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Dagestan allowed them to return to the electoral process. The right, despite losses in manpower, has not yet succeeded.
As a result, two “Russia” stood in the elections - “United” and “Fair”, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, “Patriots of Russia”, the Agrarians and the Liberal Democratic Party. The removal of the rightists and the attempt to remove the communists were apparently supposed to clear the field for the Kremlin-backed duo. But few people in Dagestan know its second participant, A Just Russia. The farmers and the Liberal Democratic Party are also unlikely to take a significant part in the division of mandates. Active players are United Russia, traditionally popular communists and Patriots of Russia. “We are ready for a real fight in the regions,” Eduard Khidirov told Vremya Novostey a few hours before the assassination attempt.
The lists of United Russia include representatives of the three strongest groups of political influence, which President Mukhu Aliyev hopes to unite among themselves. Firstly, these are representatives of the “old regime”, embodying the continuity of the course of the former leader of Dagestan, head of the State Council Magomedali Magomedov. Mr. Aliyev himself, who heads the “United Russia” list, also belongs to this group: under the State Council, the current president headed the People’s Assembly. Secondly, among United Russia there are many representatives of the so-called “Northern Alliance” - an association of Avar politicians who were in sharp opposition to the Dargin Magomedov, but loyal to the Avar Aliyev. Thirdly, the list includes the mayor of Makhachkala, Said Amirov, and a number of his supporters.
The Dargin mayor, re-elected last year, is in strained relations with the new Avar president and the appeased “northerners.” He counted on a more significant share in the division of the inheritance of the head of the State Council. New election rules threaten Makhachkala, where a quarter of the republic's population lives, with a significant reduction in the number of seats in the People's Assembly. It is believed that the mayor, trying to expand his influence in the future parliament, in addition to participating in the United Russia lists, supported the Union of Right Forces and the Patriots. Both of these parties are now among the victims.
In addition to Amirov’s people, there are many representatives of Southern Dagestan, mainly of Lezgin origin, on the “Patriots” lists. The Lezgins are a large people, divided by the Russian-Azerbaijani border, who in the early 90s of the last century put forward the demand for the creation of a sovereign Lezgistan. They have already tried to accuse the “Patriots” of abandoning the principle of internationalism when forming the list. Analysts of official Dagestan seem to have seen in the lists of the “Patriots” the outlines of a “Southern Alliance” - by analogy with the pacified “Northern”.
But on Wednesday, Eduard Khidirov told Vremya Novostey that the Patriots tried to draw up their lists internationally, and do not consider themselves an opposition. Personally, he supports President Aliyev, who, in his opinion, still retains the trust of the population. Mr. Khidirov also admitted that the main confrontation in these elections is between the ruling group and the Makhachkala mayor's office.
Some Dagestani observers believe that the assassination attempt could paradoxically benefit the Patriots: if former communist Eduard Khidirov survives and is able to bring his party to elections, he will turn into an “unsinkable” figure in the republic. It is also assumed that the assassination attempt could be the result of unresolved disagreements between Mr. Khidirov and businessmen financing the elections.
The old influence groups remain the main participants in the Dagestan political process, although the authors of the “party” electoral legislation wanted to exclude them from it. Ethnic quotas are also excluded from the law: the problem of balancing the interests of the peoples inhabiting Dagestan will have to be resolved by party leaders according to their ideas, drawing up lists of candidates. The President of the Republic, who replaced the collective State Council, should, in theory, be a person outside of ethnic groups. But opponents of President Aliyev believe that he is not succeeding.
Yesterday, a letter from an initiative group of citizens of Kumyk origin was sent to the Mukhu Aliyev administration, which contains accusations of “Avarization” of personnel policy and a threat to “self-determination of the Kumyk people as an independent subject of the Russian Federation.” The conflict has an academic reason: the rector of the Dagestan Pedagogical University, Sheikh Ismailov, died in December, and elections for a new rector are scheduled to take place next Tuesday. In the system of traditional distribution of positions between the “indigenous” peoples of the republic, this place is considered Kumyk. But the head of the initiative group, entrepreneur Hamid Valiev, believes that the most likely candidate approved by the presidential administration, Jafar Mollayev, firstly, is not a pure Kumyk, and secondly, “is personally devoted to the president and is completely alienated from the problems of his people.”
Mr. Valiev believes that the new president of Dagestan is purposefully pursuing an “anti-Kumyk policy”: “Under various pretexts, Kumyks are removed from their positions, although they are all highly qualified and experienced specialists, and in their place representatives of other nations are appointed, who are in no way superior to them in business and professional qualities,” says the address to the president. —You are pursuing a policy aimed at creating a preferential position for the Avars in Dagestan. We don’t know about others, but the Kumyk people cannot agree with such a course. He also does not agree with the fact that the first person in Dagestan should alternately be representatives of either Avar or Dargin nationality.” At the end of the letter, the initiative group informs the president of its intention to hold a congress of the Kumyk people in the near future and raise the issue of creating a separate Kumyk subject of the Russian Federation.
Several Kumyk ministers have indeed been fired recently, but Kumyk Shamil Zainalov is one of the top three officials in Dagestan - he heads the cabinet of ministers. True, the initiators of the congress consider this position to be technical and complain about the lack of Kumyks in middle positions - even in those cities and regions where they form the largest ethnic community.
In total, there are about 277 thousand Kumyks in Dagestan (according to their own data, 400 thousand), they live on the plain and in the foothills, and if the “Kumyk subject” were formed within the boundaries drawn on the map by representatives of the Kumyk movement “Tenglik” , he would have cut Dagestan into southern and northern. But Tenglik, extremely active in the 90s, is no longer so influential. The leaders of the ethnic movements of that time bargained too much successfully with the authorities to continue to enjoy mass support.
It has nothing to do with the situation with the rector of Tenglik, but it is obviously connected with the upcoming parliamentary elections. The authors of the letter do not name their candidate for rector. But the very idea of protest arose after the exclusion of Kumyk businessman Shakhabutdin Akhmedov, who is considered the man of Makhachkala Mayor Said Amirov, from the list of candidates for rector. Apparently, the pedagogical institute has become another field of political confrontation between the mayor and the president. In a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, members of the initiative group try to distance themselves from this conflict and promise that rallies and a congress will be held after the elections. It is too early to seriously worry about the territorial integrity of Dagestan: Mr. Valiev suggested that among the many thousands of Kumyk people there would be one or two thousand people ready to go to a rally.