Date
Author
Дарья ГУСЕВА; Лариса НИКИТИНА; Ростов-на-Дону
Source
Preserved copy
Translated material
Krasnodar-Nenets District
Alexander Pochinok finally returned to Moscow - as a senator
Former deputy presidential plenipotentiary representative in the Southern Federal District, who previously headed two federal ministries, Alexander Pochinok was finally appointed representative of the Krasnodar Territory in the Federation Council from the regional administration. The Legislative Assembly of the Krasnodar Territory on Wednesday approved the resolution of the regional governor on the new appointment of Mr. Pochinok. The former senator from the Tkachev administration, Farhad Akhmedov, also turned out to be in demand - on Thursday, the meeting of deputies of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO) elected him as its representative in the Federation Council.This castling was not a surprise to observers. Mr. Pochinok’s boss, Dmitry Kozak, announced on December 14 last year that his deputy was moving to another job. And even then it was assumed that Alexander Pochinok would become a senator from one of the southern regions.
It was believed that Mr. Pochinok had long been ready to return to Moscow, but was awaiting the reappointment of the head of the Krasnodar Territory, Alexander Tkachev. Since on April 10, two years before the end of his powers, Mr. Tkachev raised the question of trust with the president and received a positive answer , the matter remained small. Moreover, the previous representative from the Krasnodar Territory, ex-president of Northgas Farhad Teymur-Ogly Akhmedov, allegedly agreed to voluntarily cede his powers to Alexander Pochinok.
At first they said that Mr. Pochinok would go to the Federation Council from the Volgograd region. Alexander Pochinok, who at one time headed the federal ministries of taxes and duties, as well as labor and social development, already in the position of deputy plenipotentiary representative, stated that it is the Volgograd region that today is the number one region in the south of Russia in terms of economic potential, and not at all the current leaders of the district - - Krasnodar region and Rostov region. At one time it was even believed that Alexander Pochinok was being considered as a potential successor to Volgograd Governor Nikolai Maksyuta.
It is possible that it was this fact that forced the Volgograd governor to differently dispose of the vacancy he had at that time in the Federation Council - Mr. Maksyuta sent documents to the local parliament on the delegation of Vladimir Babichev, the Russian Ambassador to Kazakhstan, to the Federation Council. And Alexander Pochinok, six months after Mr. Kozak’s public statement about the impending return of his subordinate to Moscow, was delegated to the Krasnodar Territory.
On Thursday, a meeting of deputies of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug unanimously elected the current co-owner of the gas production enterprise Northgas CJSC, Farhad Akhmedov (he and his family own 49% of the company’s shares, 51% of Gazprom OJSC) as its representative in the Federation Council. It is possible that the Senate is trying to insure itself against such changes by initiating bills on a ten-year residency requirement for senators. Farhad Akhmedov was elected senator from the Krasnodar Territory at the end of 2004, at the height of the struggle with Gazprom , which was then seeking what he believed was the 51% stake in Northgas that was lost. In September 2005, the gas monopoly returned the controlling stake in Northgas to its ownership, and already in 2006, Northgas produced about 3.9 billion cubic meters of gas.
Now the Nenets District has gained another senator. In December 2006, the meeting of deputies of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug elected its speaker, Igor Koshin, as a senator, but without explanation, he was never approved by the Federation Council. Recently, Mr. Koshin withdrew his candidacy from this post. Before Mr. Koshin, Nenets deputies tried to make St. Petersburg businessman Alexander Sabadash their representative, but his candidacy was also not agreed upon in the upper house of parliament, and then ceased to be considered at all due to accusations from Sergei Mironov of entrepreneurial activities. The administration of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug is represented in the Federation Council by the former First Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Yuri Biryukov, and the regional parliament of the Krasnodar Territory is represented by Alexey Shishkov, the former head of the regional FSB Directorate.