Some commentators have construed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's December 24
assertion
that new elections will take place in several municipalities in
Daghestan as setting a laudable precedent for annulling the outcome of
regional ballots that were openly and blatantly rigged.
But it
is equally likely that Medvedev's public endorsement of the ruling the
previous day by Daghestan's Supreme Court upholding the Derbent City
Court's decision to
annul the results
of the October 11 ballot for city mayor was part of a carefully
constructed rationale not to appoint incumbent Mukhu Aliyev to serve a
second term as Daghestan's president.
Aliyev mobilized
virtually the entire republican leadership to campaign on behalf of
incumbent Derbent Mayor Feliks Kaziakhmedov, who was duly proclaimed
the winner with 67.5 percent of the vote, compared with 28 percent for
his closest challenger, former republican prosecutor Imam Yaraliyev.
Aliyev,
whose term expires in February, was one of five potential presidential
candidates on a list presented to Medvedev last month by the presidium
of the ruling United Russia party. That list did not include
influential Makhachkala Mayor Said Amirov, who many observers believe
has for years aspired to the presidency. Amirov is a Dargin, while
Aliyev and three of the other five candidates on the list are Avars.
The fifth, Magomedsalam Magomedov, the son of Aliyev's predecessor as
president, is also a Dargin.
Eight Russian State Duma deputies
from Daghestan had earlier written to Medvedev and to United Russia
Chairman Boris Gryzlov arguing that Amirov was the
best-qualified candidate to take over from Aliyev as president. Medvedev nonetheless endorsed the list of five names on December 16.
On
December 25, seven of the eight State Duma deputies who originally
lobbied Medvedev and Gryzlov on Amirov's behalf reportedly sent an
official request to Russian Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika to open an
investigation into the deployment to Derbent during the mayoral
election campaign of "armed groups of state bureaucrats" who, the
signatories
alleged, surrounded polling stations and terrorized voters, creating an "unbearable situation."
But several of the purported signatories told the website "
Kavkaz-uzel"
on December 27 on condition of anonymity that the appeal was never
sent, and one of them, Rizvan Isayev, denied on December 28 that he
ever signed it. A second deputy identified as having signed the appeal,
Magomed-kadi Gasanov, confirmed, however, both that he had done so, and
that the appeal was indeed sent to Chaika.
Some observers interpreted the appeal to Chaika as a further attempt to discredit Aliyev, who responded by
accusing
the "opposition" of terrorizing and attempting to bribe voters and of
seeking to destabilize the political situation in order to secure the
appointment as president of a "puppet" whom they could "manipulate."
Aliyev
did not, however, attend a parliament session on December 29 at which
deputies were scheduled to endorse his grandiose 10-year social and
economic development program, and many of the deputies who constitute
his support base reportedly staged a walkout, thereby thwarting a vote.
One deputy told "
Kavkaz-uzel"
that "many" of his fellow deputies offered congratulations to
Magomedov, who was visibly in excellent spirits. But another
commentator construed the walkout as a warning signal to Moscow that
the parliament would reject any proposed presidential candidate except
Aliyev.
http://www.rferl.org/content/No_End_In_Sight_To_Daghestan_Presidential_CliffHanger_/1916956.html
