Defile of sovereignties

Chechnya was appointed as a model subject of the federation

By appointing Ramzan Kadyrov as president of Chechnya , the Kremlin allowed this republic to win a kind of competition for the title of exemplary subject of the federation that has unfolded over the past couple of years between two of Russia's once most problematic territories - Chechnya and Tatarstan. Tatarstan was unexpectedly cut short at the finish line : at the end of February, senators rejected the draft agreement between Kazan and Moscow on the division of powers, already approved by the president and approved by the constitutional majority of the State Duma.

Now experts are wondering whether the Senate veto turned out to be simply a convenient way of self-promotion for the A Just Russia political party, headed by Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov. Or it was agreed in advance with the administration of President Putin, like the Duma approval, and thus became a form of polite refusal to the Tatarstan federalists led by the venerable hero of the day Mintimer Shaimiev, who recently turned 70 years old. Moreover, after the agreement was rejected, United Russia leader Boris Gryzlov confirmed that if the document was returned to the lower house, the Duma majority would override the Senate veto.

Chechnya and Tatarstan have long worried Kremlin bosses. In the early 90s of the last century, it was they who became the leaders of the famous “parade of sovereignties” - against the backdrop of the general crisis of the collapsing Soviet system, a strong political mobilization of the titular ethnic groups took place in these republics. The leadership of the USSR, which was in conflict with Boris Yeltsin’s team that came to power in Russia, then proposed that the Russian autonomies equalize their status with the union republics. This could split the RSFSR and weaken its leaders.

Yeltsin's cry about sovereignty, which everyone can take as much as they can, still evokes vengeful spasms on the faces of patriotic powers who apparently forgot that the Russian leader was forced to look for at least some way to keep the republics from leaving. Otherwise, the process of collapse of the USSR would have been much more painful and destructive for Russia.

In the end, they managed to persuade everyone except Tatarstan and Chechnya - both republics accepted declarations of sovereignty , and after the final collapse of the Union, they refused to sign the Federal Treaty with Moscow (1992) and adopt the federal Constitution (1993). Further events developed differently. Chechnya, which adopted its own sovereign constitution in 1992, slid into an internal civil war by 1994, in which Russia was eventually forced to intervene. And Tatarstan, which also adopted a constitution in 1992 without a single mention of Russia and in the same year confirmed its independence in an internal referendum, achieved internal stability and signed an agreement and a whole block of intergovernmental agreements with Moscow in 1994. This package provided him with very significant budgetary, raw materials, military and political preferences and until the early 2000s remained the only act that cemented the Volga republic with the rest of the country.

In the first years of the new millennium, the administration of Vladimir Putin began building a “vertical of power,” which implied the unification of the country’s political and legal space. Experts from the Prosecutor General’s Office and the President’s Legal Department did a tremendous job editing regional legislation in accordance with federal legislation. There was still a war going on in Chechnya at that time—the second in a row. The Constitution of Tatarstan was successfully amended and enriched with a mention of the inviolable community with Russia, which is enshrined in both Basic Laws and the agreement on the division of powers.

A little later, in 2003, the center denounced certain agreements with the regions concluded during the “parade of sovereignties,” including an open-ended agreement with Tatarstan. But in the Tatarstan constitution, by mutual agreement of Moscow and Kazan, a “triple” formula of unity remained: two Basic Laws plus an agreement. Therefore, almost immediately after the termination of the old agreement, the working group of the Speaker of the State Council of the RepublicFarid Mukhametshin, with the approval of the Kremlin, sat down to write a new one.

In 2003, Chechnya also adopted a new, pro-Russian constitution. The project was largely copied from the constitution of Tatarstan, but did not provide for the mandatory conclusion of an agreement. Nevertheless, the new Chechen leadership also sat down to the project of delimiting powers - a special status seemed self-evident to Grozny officials sitting in construction temporary shelters in the middle of a republic completely destroyed by two wars.

Both working groups - both in Grozny and in Kazan - used the old Russian-Tatarstan agreement as an example. Grozny was the first to present a project in which he actually demanded a monopoly right to use subsoil resources, tax holidays and restrictions on the presence of the federal military. Mukhametshin's group also tried to repeat the success of 1994. This did not suit the Kremlin at all - lengthy work on coordination began.

Tatarstan was the first to succeed: in November 2006, the project, in which, according to its developers, after agreement with the administration’s lawyers, not even 0.3% of the content of the original text remained, not to mention the 1994 agreement, was approved by the president. Tatarstan received the right to conclude agreements with the Russian government on issues affecting its economic, environmental and cultural characteristics (these agreements are subject to mandatory approval by the federal parliament), develop international and foreign economic relations - strictly with the approval of the relevant federal authorities, support ethnic Tatars outside the republic, have a president who is fluent in the Tatar language, and issue residents with a special insert in their general passport with the Tatarstan coat of arms.

In essence, the agreement turned out to be absolutely symbolic and most of all resembled a souvenir for the 70th anniversary of Mintimer Shaimiev. The supporters of the treaty in Tatarstan themselves called it absolutely “centripetal.” At the same time, they hope to create a precedent: if the agreement is approved in principle, its content can be somewhat expanded over time.

Opponents of the treaty in Moscow were frightened by the word “precedent” even more than the word “sovereignty,” rightly explained in the draft as the independence of the republic outside the jurisdiction of the federation and the subject of joint jurisdiction. The Speaker of the Federation Council and his like-minded people saw in the project a threat to the resumption of the “parade of sovereignties.”

Tatarstan experts do not believe that a queue of regions will immediately form behind Kazan, wishing to sign a similar agreement with the center, and do not see the agreement as a universal model for all regions. But they believe that donor regions like Tatarstan have the right to such regulation of relations with the center, which in a stable country will in any case remain stronger. From their point of view, a transparent system of intelligible agreements that have gone through the procedure of approval and ratification is better than the informal rules of relations between the federal and regional elites that have emerged as a result of the construction of the “vertical of power.”

But Moscow’s latest political achievements in Chechnya indicate that “informal regulations” are preferable. The new President of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, after the Senate’s refusal to Tatarstan, publicly abandoned the negotiated division of powers. But he received complete carte blanche to govern the republic at his own discretion, having only Vladimir Putin himself as a “check and balance.”

Ramzan Kadyrov has his undoubted advantages - he is an ardent supporter of the unity of Chechnya with Russia, an opponent of radical Islam, militants surrender to him, he builds houses where ruins lay for five years. At the same time, his circle includes many former separatists, and he exercises his power with the help of republican security forces, which report not so much to the relevant federal ministers as to him personally, and, moreover, consist of yesterday’s militants. Of course, they ensure legality in accordance with their own understanding, which causes very unpleasant comments from Western human rights experts. But the London emissary of the separatists, Akhmed Zakayev, approved the appointment of Ramzan Kadyrov, noting that the youngest Russian governor treats the Ichkerians “with understanding.”

Moscow paid no attention to this paradoxical outcome of ten years of bloody battle for the Russian constitutional order in Chechnya and, as Gleb Pavlovsky put it, Russia’s self-identification. It is interesting that in the chorus of approval of the truly uncontested candidate Kadyrov, no one remembered that the federal center itself made him uncontested. Among others, the head of the Senate Committee on Constitutional Legislation, Yuri Sharandin, who recommended that the chamber reject the agreement with Tatarstan, warmly welcomed Ramzan Kadyrov’s approval, not noticing that it contradicts the regional constitution, and that contradicts Russian laws: according to it, the President of Chechnya is still elected by the people . But the same Mr. Pavlovsky announced that Ramzan Kadyrov took his place more deservedly than many other Russian governors.

Minor legal nuances can be neglected, since Chechnya has become an ideal model. It is not so important what its leader actually does to the residents and the republic. The only important thing is that the economically attractive segment of the Chechen economy (legal oil production) is entirely under federal control.

The same cannot be said about the economy of Tatarstan, although the republic has lost almost all its previous economic preferences. The volume and quality of this economy is difficult to compare with similar indicators in subsidized Chechnya, even though Tatarstan’s oil is inferior in quality to that of Grozny. It seems that the federal center knows only one way to “redistribute” regional resources - it does not require complex procedures of public approvals and ratifications, it is enough to change the mode of relations with the regional elite.

It is characteristic that one of the four negative Senate conclusions on the agreement was signed by the head of the Senate Committee on Federation Affairs and Regional Policy Rafgat Altynbaev, who in Tatarstan is considered a possible successor to Mintimer Shaimiev according to Moscow. This list also includes the former mayor of Kazan, now the presidential envoy to the Far East, Kamil Iskhakov, and the federal Minister of Internal Affairs, Rashid Nurgaliev. All three figures cause quite distinct irritation among Tatarstan politicians: in the republic they would like to see Farid Mukhametshin succeed Shaimiev.

At the same time, the Tatarstan administration sees no reason for the early resignation of its current boss. Shaimiev is loyal, he has ensured peace, ethnic and religious harmony within his republic, he is friends with Vladimir Putin, and is one of the pillars of United Russia. His mandate was extended last year for the next five years. The federal authorities are facing big elections at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, in which the republic must show the desired result. And a change of president with the subsequent redistribution of power and economic resources can inappropriately “shatter” the situation.

Protests of many thousands in the early 90s are unlikely to spill out onto the streets of Kazan again - even if the delimitation agreement remains in the Federation Council, they decide to send Mintimer Shaimiev to an honorable pension, and the redistribution of resources follows the most severe scenario. The fact is that the “informal regulations” of regional authorities and their relations with the federal center have long ceased to interest people. Chechnya, with its universal higher education in political science, obtained under bombs, is rather an exception to the general rule. But there, as everywhere else, “ordinary people” are of little interest to the participants in these relationships. Not to mention that there are regions that have long since fallen completely out of sight of the federal authorities - along with ordinary residents, political elites and depressed economies.

It seems that no one is particularly concerned that in the future this mutual indifference may explode stronger than a thousand nationalisms. In the meantime, instead of an ugly “parade of sovereignties” with rallies in squares, the Kremlin staged a small fashion show of acceptable models of federal relations: Mintimer Shaimiev walked down the podium with a draft agreement and Ramzan Kadyrov, who has postponed the agreement for now. Naturally, youth won.

Ivan SUKHOV