Translated material
Won't hurt a fly
The President of Dagestan gets rid of the legacy of his predecessor
The Dagestan authorities began to reshape the political landscape of the republic in accordance with the results of the elections to the People's Assembly, held on March 11 of this year . Last week, deputies of the new convocation gathered for their first meeting, and it immediately resulted in the vacation of one of the key players in the republican political scene, the speaker of the parliament of the previous convocation, Magomedsalam Magomedov. The new composition of the regional legislative assembly will be chaired by another people's representative - 48-year-old Magomed Suleymanov, the former mayor of the small Dagestan city of Izberbash. Mr. Magomedov, 43, who retained his parliamentary mandate, was given the opportunity to take time out to prepare for the December elections to the Russian State Duma.Magomedsalam Magomedov is the son of the former head of the State Council of Dagestan, Magomedali Magomedov, who actually led the republic from 1984 to 2006. His son's future move to the federal parliament is a natural outcome of a very peculiar reform that has taken place in recent years in Russia's southernmost republic. The very course of the political process in Dagestan indicates that the main role in it is not played by institutions and regulations, but by personalities and ethnic communities.
In the early 1990s, Dagestan, where several dozen ethnic groups of unequal numbers coexist, refused to introduce the post of president, since the president could represent only one people - as it seemed, to the detriment of others. In 1994, a unique system was created: deputies of the republican parliament elected from among themselves the State Council, which included representatives of the 14 largest ethnic groups, forming something like a “collective president.” Formal representation was respected, but the real balance of interests was achieved with the help of an unwritten ethnic “table of ranks.” The State Council was headed by Dargin Magomedali Magomedov, the People's Assembly by Avar Mukhu Aliyev, and the government by Kumyk (officials in this technical position changed several times).
In the early 2000s, it was decided that Dagestan society consists primarily of Russian citizens, whose ethnic differences need not be emphasized, and that Dagestan itself could well be brought into institutional conformity with other Russian regions. The constitution and electoral legislation were amended to abolish ethnic quotas in parliamentary elections and eliminate the “collective president.”
Dagestani ethnic elites became concerned: the chances of being elected increased disproportionately for Avar politicians, since Avars constitute the largest ethnic group (about a quarter of the republic's population). Fortunately, the popular election of the sole Dagestan leader never took place: in 2004, the election of regional leaders was replaced by approval by deputies of the local parliament on the proposal of the head of state.
Nevertheless, in February 2006, the head of the State Council, Magomedali Magomedov, who did not have good relations with the young Avar oppositionists and with the presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District Dmitry Kozak, resigned. The Avar Mukhu Aliyev, also a long-liver of Dagestan politics, became the president: until 1991, he was the first secretary of the Republican Committee of the CPSU. The Avar opposition was satisfied, but the new president had to take measures to maintain a balance of ethnic and clan interests. There was a rearrangement of the terms of the ethnic equation: a Dargin, and the native son of the resigned leader, became the speaker of parliament under the Avar president. This was a kind of debt of Mr. Aliyev to Magomedov Sr., whose team he had been a part of for the last 20 years.
The new People's Assembly has become one third smaller and is formed exclusively by parties, which were informally ordered to maintain ethnic balance in their lists. But the preparation and conduct of the elections showed that the real political parties in Dagestan do not coincide with those included in the ballot papers. There were several real games. The ruling group is, without a doubt, the group of Mukhu Aliyev himself - it has a rich tradition and large administrative resources. Her allies seem to be young Avar politicians who were in opposition to the former leader of Dagestan, but were happy with the arrival of an Avar president. Part of the old elite grouped around Magomedsalam Magomedov: before the elections, it seemed that the contradictions between him and Mr. Aliyev were insignificant, and the son of the ex-chairman of the State Council is also part of the ruling party. The opposition party is considered to be a group of supporters of the mayor of Makhachkala, Dargin resident Said Amirov, who is sensitive about the decline in his influence after the change of the republican leader.
In the fight for seats in the new parliament, Mr. Amirov tried to support the Union of Right Forces and Patriots of Russia, with whom politicians and entrepreneurs of southern Dagestan, predominantly of Lezgin origin, also tried to cooperate.
As a result, we can state the defeat of the Makhachkala mayor: the Union of Right Forces was not allowed to participate in the elections at all, and the “Patriots” did not participate in the division of mandates. The relatively independent political forces in the new parliament are the agrarians and communists, and the latter literally broke through through the fight, through the courts and inspections of the Central Election Commission. The Mukhu Aliyev administration seemed to compile the lists of “United” and “Fair Russia” in such a way as to take into account the interests of all real influence groups - the president, the former head of the State Council, the Avar opposition, and the capital’s mayor’s office.
The head of the republic, however, did not hide the fact that he would like to exclude these traditional influence groups from Dagestan politics. It turned out, of course, that the issue was not in the lists of candidates, but in the actual distribution of seats and positions. As a result, United Russia unexpectedly nominated the mayor of Izberbash, Magomed Suleymanov, to the post of speaker of the republican parliament, for whom the deputy corps voted unanimously. And now ex-speaker Magomedsalam Magomedov, after consultations with President Mukhu Aliyev, went to prepare for the Duma elections.
The new speaker is also a Dargin. The balance rule is met, but the heir of the old head of the region is removed from the field. President Aliyev has proven that he is no less a sophisticated politician than his predecessor. But Dagestan, apparently, will live for a long time according to its own internal rules, which have very little in common with the formulas of Russian legislation.