Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Russia

Tatarstan Confirms Shaimiev As President

Kazan, 25 March 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Tartarstan's State Council today confirmed Mintimer Shaimiev as the president of the Russian Republic of Tatarstan.

TEXT SIZE - +

March 25, 2005

In mid-March, Russian President Vladimir Putin nominated the longtime head of Tatarstan to serve a new term. Under a new Russian law, regional legislatures elect heads of regions after Russia's president nominates a candidate for the post.

Putin has faced criticism from foreign governments and liberals at home over the law he pushed for last year, which ended elections of the leaders of Russia's administrative regions.

Shaimiev, who is 68, has been Tatarstan's president since 1991. His third five-year term was due to expire in March 2006.

(RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service/Interfax)

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin covers his face during a conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow on February 9.

Administrative (Resource) Breakdown

Administrative resources make up the glue that holds authoritarian structures like Putin's power vertical together. And there have been plenty of signs recently that this glue is weakening. More

Syrians in the northwestern town of Kfar Nubul pose with a cartoon depicting Russia

Angry Over Syria, Arab World Threatens Russian Boycott

Groups in a number of Arab states, angry over the Russian-Chinese veto of a UN resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, have called for a one-day boycott of Russian and Chinese goods on February 12. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More