The authorities of Tatarstan have come to terms with the “loss” of the president
The head of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, today commented on the adoption by the State Duma of the Russian Federation of a law on public power, according to which he can no longer be called president.
Minnikhanov’s response today at the final press conference showed both dissatisfaction and humility, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The law has already been passed. The position of our parliament was known. It is clear that there are historically established things that are present... We must be able to hear each other. When the work on the Constitution was going on, a commission was created, there were many authoritative people on it, and this whole procedure went very positively. And regarding this law, not only our deputies opposed it, 60-70 deputies voted. Although if the same Klishas (the author of the law - ed.) had come to our parliament, met, explained, I think the position would have been different. It is clear that the law has been adopted. We are law-abiding people. It so happened that our voice was not heard,” Minnikhanov said.
At the same time, he fully supported other controversial provisions of the law.
The law on public power caused serious passions in Tatarstan, the only subject of the Russian Federation in which the leader was still called the president. In October, the State Council of the Republic unanimously did not support the draft law. It is believed that Minnikhanov was personally behind this demarche.
During all three hearings in parliament, all deputies elected from Tatarstan, including 6 deputies from United Russia, voted against the bill.
The local media also showed insolence.
“Everyone else, even the national republics, took the cake. This is, of course, discouraging. I did not expect such unequivocal approval, first of all, from our neighbors. Needless to say, there are few truly violent ones. This, unfortunately, is a new reality after the departure of political heavyweights in many regions and the arrival of regional managers, who are essentially political amateurs,” was the text said by the presenter on the Tatarstan TV channel.
Local non-system specialists did not lag behind either.
“What remains is Tatarstan society and, more broadly, the Tatar world. It is clear that there will be no mass rallies or self-immolations. But there are forms of protest available to everyone. The editors of BUSINESS Online will follow the advice of Putin, who suggested that the residents of Tatarstan themselves decide the issue of the name for the leader of the republic.
We have made our choice: we will continue to call the first person of Tatarstan president under any legislation as long as we ourselves consider it necessary. We urge other media, public organizations, and businesses to do the same. We believe that this could become a kind of test, something like the answer to the question “Whose Crimea?”
So, does Tatarstan have a “president” or a “head”? Let everyone answer as their heart and conscience dictate. And then the word “president” will not become a memory of lost greatness, but, on the contrary, a unifying symbol. What seemed like a candy wrapper, under pressure from the outside, will suddenly be filled with meaning again. Remember how exactly after the persecution of the Tatar language in 2017, the nation began to wake up,” called the main liberal publication of the republic.
The demarches of journalists could well stir up nationalist and extremist sentiments in the Muslim republic. State Duma deputies from Tatarstan immediately criticized the idea of celebrating the liberation of Rus' from the Tatar-Mongol yoke.
According to communist Artem Prokofiev, “this is a mistake; such initiatives cannot be put forward at the all-Russian level.” At the same time, nothing bothered him when in May the elders of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Tatarstan unanimously voted to annually commemorate the fellow tribesmen who fell during the capture of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible in 1552 - Kheter kon.
Turkish emissaries are actively working in the republic. The regional press openly supported Azerbaijan during the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. There have been cases of Muslim extremism and even terrorist attacks.
Last week, an incident at the cemetery in the regional center of Aktanysh (Tatarstan), where local authorities ordered the cutting down of an Orthodox cross, gained all-Russian resonance. The deputy head of the Aktanysh district, Raikhan Galimyanova, bluntly stated that officials there are protecting the “national purity” of the region from crosses.
The leadership of Tatarstan pays special attention to the Aktynysh region, because it was here that the first president of the republic (1991–2010), Mintimer Shaimiev, was born, who achieved independence from Moscow (according to the 1992 Constitution, Tatarstan is a sovereign state).
“Here’s Tatarstan for you. An elementary problem, renaming the position of the head of the republic, eliminating the institution of “presidency”. And what? This is not even a sprout of separatism. This is a loud, vulgar echo of the parade of sovereignties of the 90s. Rejection of centrist interests in favor of external ones by local fattening economic elites. And if Bashkiria quickly extinguished the desire to separate from Russia, then Kazan apparently still suffers from old metastases,” political scientist Sergei Karnaukhov wrote in his Telegram channel.
On December 22, a court in Moscow arrested the rector of the Kazan Federal University, Ilshat Gafurov, on charges of murder.
“By arresting the rector of Kazan University, Moscow is signaling to Minnikhanov that: “Minnikhanov, don’t get too carried away, now we’re taking away the position of president from you and just try to say no, you’ll follow the rector, Minnikhanov,” he provocatively commented on this event on the radio station “Echo.” Moscow" liberal journalist Oleg Kashin.
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