The Moscow Times: Medvedev Proposes 4 New Governors

The Moscow Times: Medvedev Proposes 4 New Governors

By Nabi Abdullaev

President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday nominated four candidates to replace incumbent regional leaders, including the son of Dagestan's long-serving former president, raising questions about his plan to refresh the regional leadership with new faces.

The nominations follow last month's decision by long-serving Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiyev to request that he not be considered for a fifth term when his current one expires in March. The move was seen as a graceful exit for the popular Shaimiyev, making it harder for other third- and fourth-term governors to seek reappointment.

Last month, Medvedev suggested limiting regional bosses to three terms after recommending the scandal-tainted Primorye governor, Sergei Darkin, to remain for a third term.

The Kremlin press service said Monday that Medvedev nominated local lawmaker Magomedsalam Magomedov, 45, to lead the volatile Dagestan republic.

He also tapped Lev Kuznetsov, a 44-year-old former executive at Norilsk Nickel, to become governor of the Krasnoyarsk region. Kuznetsov would replace former Norilsk CEO Alexander Khloponin, whom Medvedev promoted last month to head the newly created North Caucasus Federal District.

United Russia State Duma Deputy Natalya Komarova, 54, was tapped to take over the oil-rich Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district, which has been led by Alexander Filipenko, 59, since 1991. If confirmed by the regional parliament, she would become the second Russian female governor, after St. Petersburg's Valentina Matviyenko.

Medvedev offered 54-year-old Alexander Vinnikov, mayor of Birobidzhan, capital of the Jewish autonomous region, to head the far eastern region. The incumbent governor, Nikolai Volkov, 58, has also held the post since 1991.

A source in the presidential administration told Interfax on Monday that the "president has shaped a course to refresh the governors' corps," and the nominations largely reflected that trend. They also showed the Kremlin turning back to local hires after a regional outsider — Kaliningrad Governor Georgy Boos — was caught unawares by a massive protest in his region late last month.

Tatarstan's Shaimiyev will be replaced by a political ally, the republic's prime minister.

Of all the nominations Monday, the choice of Magomedov for Dagestan was the most intriguing.

The deadline for Kremlin proposals passed more than two weeks ago, and United Russia proposed a record five candidates for Medvedev. Adding to the stakes, political violence — a routine element of life in Dagestan — has been escalating in recent months.

On Friday, Akhmed Magomedov, police chief of the capital Makhachkala, was shot dead along with a driver and two bodyguards. He is not related to Magomedsalam Magomedov.

But Medvedev's candidate is the son of Magomedali Magomedov, who ruled Dagestan from 1991 to 2005, suggesting that the Kremlin will stay pragmatic while seeking to bring new blood into the aging corps of governors.

The elder Magomedov, now 80, managed his political longevity thanks to a talent for balancing the appetites of the numerous and violent clans that comprise the Dagestani ruling elite. He resigned abruptly after a secret meeting with then-President Vladimir Putin.

Mukhu Aliyev, who led Dagestan during the late Communist era and became speaker of the republic's parliament under Magomedov, was then nominated to become president and approved by the local parliament.

Lawmakers then also voted unanimously to install Magomedsalam Magomedov, a wealthy businessman, as its new speaker. After the regional parliamentary elections in 2007, the new Dagestani parliament unanimously voted to replace Magomedov as speaker, although he stayed on as a lawmaker from United Russia.

Curiously, the senior members of the Dagestani parliament have promised to vote unanimously for any candidate proposed by Medvedev. All of the Kremlin's gubernatorial nominations have been approved by local legislatures since the system replaced direct elections in 2005.

Aliyev is an ethnic Avar, which is the biggest — though politically divided — ethnic group in Dagestan. The Magomedovs belong to the second-largest group, the Dargins. Avars and Dargins traditionally compete for power in the republic, which has dozens of distinct ethnic groups.

Aliyev was among the five candidates pitched to Medvedev by United Russia.

In 2005, political pundits described the appointment of Aliyev — a soft-spoken, well-educated bureaucrat without a powerbase of his own or a history of involvement in corruption — as an exception to the rule in Dagestani politics. It was also seen as a sign that the Kremlin wanted to undercut the republic's clannish, corrupt and violent nature.

But the attempt has made little progress. Dagestan still features prominently in the criminal news, and there have been no signs of a local economic recovery, despite billions of rubles in aid from the federal government.

"Just a year after [Aliyev] was appointed, all the clans were back in the game, dividing money and cushy positions in the government, and he was fine with it," a senior official in the Dagestani government said Monday by phone from Makhachkala. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution from Aliyev's supporters.

The Kremlin's choice of Magomedov might mean that Moscow has opted for a policy of pacifying the republic by seeking balance among the warring factions rather than a violent confrontation with them, the official said.

"And, of course, Magomedov will strongly rely on the authority of his father," the official said. The elder Magomedov still actively participates in Dagestani politics as the honorary chairman of the State Council, a consultative body representing the 14 so-called titular ethnic groups there.

Alexei Titkov, a regional analyst with the Higher School of Economics, agreed.

"Aliyev was selected five years ago in hopes of change for the better. Magomedov's selection is an attempt to mothball negative developments in Dagestan," he said.

09.02.2010, 04.50

MOSCOW, February 9 (Itar-Tass) - A forum, dedicated to the creation of an ethical and safe World Wide Web, is to be held in Moscow on Tuesday, on the International Day of Internet Safety. The forum has been organized by the Russian Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, and the Organizing Committee of the Internet Safety Year in Russia.

An official at the Communications Ministry has told Itar-Tass that participants in the forum will discuss a rise in the level of Internet safety to children, estimates of the results of comprehensive psychological and sociological research, as well as the combining of the efforts of the professional Internet community to protect the rising generation in the World Wide Web.

The Ministry analysts believe that "This is Russia's first forum dealing with one of the most important problems of the development of information society. Panel and roundtable meetings will deal with prospects, new strategies and technologies for solving the problem of creating an ethical and safe Internet environment for the rising generations".

A ceremony is to be held to present awards to participants in the social advertising competition, and in Interneshka and My Safety Net contests.

08/02/2010 | Moscow News №03 2010

Moscow News: Pro-Medvedev liberals push radical agenda

http://www.mn.ru/news/20100208/55409824.html

Anna Arutunyan

Liberal supporters of President Dmitry Medvedev cranked up the pressure for radical reforms last week, calling on Russia to dismantle the Federal Security Service and the Interior Ministry, do away with conscription, reintroduce direct elections for governors and even join the European Union.

In the wake of the large-scale protest in Kaliningrad a few days earlier, Igor Yurgen's report - "21st-Century Russia: Reflections on an Attractive Tomorrow" - described an optimistic scenario where the government had been successful in pushing through a liberal overhaul of its political and economic system.

In its timing, analysts said the report looked like a rallying call to get Medvedev's modernisation campaign back on track, and that it reflected polarisation in a pre-election period that seems to have begun early.

Yurgens' Institute of Contemporary Development, a think tank chaired by Medvedev, has been urging modernisation since it was created two years ago. Its policies are a few steps ahead of Medvedev's plan, which has included battling corruption and boosting innovation in the economy.

"We pay much more attention to image and PR than we do to substance and tactics," he told journalists at a RIA Novosti briefing on Thursday. "Someone develops a strategy, but after that the methods start becoming Soviet. Not enough milk production? The agriculture chief calls you in and says we can't show these results to the premier. And like that - the results are changed."

"Parasitic-distributive values have been replaced by creative-production values. The model of the people serving the government is replaced by a model in which the government serves the people," the report says. "Russia is a federal republic with a strong president and a strong two-chamber parliament.

According to Yurgens' and Gontmakher's modernisation scenario, the state would halve its stake in business to under 30 per cent, diversify its economy and wean itself off its oil addiction. After extensive law enforcement reforms, the Interior Ministry would be replaced by a Federal Service of Criminal Police - and a separate Financial Police would investigate economic crimes. The FSB, meanwhile, would be replaced by a counter-intelligence agency.

Yurgens did not give a timetable for the reforms, but said they were "inevitable" if Russia was to survive in its present form.
He did not specifically link the reforms to either Medvedev or Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Asked about the two leaders' joint leadership, he recalled that Putin's favourite word was "carefully".

"I've heard him say this many times at meetings," said Yurgens. "He is "carefully" guiding Medvedev through his presidency. Then they will decide" who runs for president in 2012, he said.

The timing of the report and its findings have fuelled speculation that Yurgens could be angling for a bigger political role, possibly as a candidate to lead the liberal Right Cause party - a successor to the now-defunct Union of Right Forces.

Pravoye Delo's current leader is Boris Titov, head of Opora, a lobby group representing small- and medium-size businesses.
Natalya Shavshukova, a spokeswoman for Pravoye Delo, told The Moscow News that Yurgens' candidature had been discussed but it was "too early" to say who might succeed Titov as the party's leader.

Mark Urnov, a political scientist at the Higher School of Economics, said the government needed to start adopting the reforms outlined in the report, "or modernisation simply won't happen".

Along with recent feuding between United Russia and the left-leaning Just Russia leader Sergei Mironov, the report showed that a shift was underway in the country's political life, Urnov said.

"As the country eases out of the crisis, social unrest becomes more dangerous," he said, noting that political change often happens just as economic conditions start to improve. "The worst thing the Kremlin could do is launch a new wave of repression."