25 September 2000
DAILY REVIEW FROM TATARSTAN
Tatar Presidential Poll To Be Held In December After All
Tatarstan's State Council decided at a plenary session on 23 September to set the president elections in the republic for 24 December, Tatar Television reported. The parliamentary chairman, Farid Mukhametshin, commented at the session that it will not be a pre-term election but a poll that is in accordance with new legislation. The second five-year term of Tatar President Mintimer Shaimiev expires in March. However, according to the law on presidential elections which was passed at the parliamentary session on 22 September after having more than 250 amendments and modifications made to it and was published next day, an election date can be brought up or postponed by three months.
The question on changing the presidential election date was proposed to be discussed by deputy Marat Galiev, who argued it was necessary because of the unstable situation in the Russian Federation. Mukhametshin said on the session's first day that the issue needed to be approved by the Tatar president in written form. On 23 September, he informed the body that Mintimer Shaimiev, who is currently vacationing in Antalia, Turkey, sent a fax in favor of the proposal.
A Russian State Duma deputy representing Tatarstan, Fandas Safiullin, commented on the issue in an interview with Tatar Television on 23 September. He said that as there is added "aggravation of the situation in Russia," we should find time to gain a more stable authority. The chief editor of the independent weekly "Zvezda Povolzhya," political researcher Rashid Akhmetov, told Tatar Television the same day that the president "decided to transform the 24 December elections into a referendum evaluating the fruits of the sovereignty decade." He said that in the case of gaining 85-90 percent in the election, Shaimiev would be more persuasive in negotiating with Putin. Akhmetov added that the republic would lose too much if the election was not held in March.
Former Bashkortostan Official Nominated As Republic's Federal Inspector
Bashkortostan's former emergency minister, Rustem Khamitov, was appointed the chief federal inspector in Bashkortostan by an order from the presidential representative to the Volga super district, Sergei Kirienko, the district's press service reported. For the last two years, Khamitov was head of the federal Emergency Ministry's department on preventing and eliminating emergency situations in Moscow.
German Bank To Give 15 Million Mark Credit To Bashkreditbank
Germany's Saxon Land bank will allocate 15 million marks to Bashkreditbank, according to an agreement signed during a visit by a Bashkortostan governmental delegation to Germany, Bashinform reported on 21 September. The credit will be introduced to finance the delivery of equipment produced by the German company LURGI to Russia's biggest petrochemical plant, Salavatnefteorgsintez. The credit is the second in the credit line opened by the Saxon bank for Bashkreditbank last summer. The first one, for 5 million euro, was given for the purchase of grain combines for farms in the republic.
By Gulnara Khasanova