Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 15 – Moscow will
allow Tatarstan to retain the position of president until Rustam Minnikhanov’s term
runs out in 2020, but it won’t extend the power-sharing agreement between
Moscow and Kazan that runs out this month, today’s Kommersant reports, citing an unnamed source close to the Russian
leadership.
The future of the title and other
arrangements in Tatarstan that had been governed by the power-sharing treaties
in the past are to be the subject of a bilateral commission with
representatives from both the Russian government and the Tatarstan government,
the source says (kommersant.ru/doc/3356528).
The source said that the Kremlin had
reached this decision on the basis of an appeal from the Tatarstan State
Council earlier this month that had called for talks about the provisions of
the power-sharing agreement but that did not specifically call for its
extension or replacement, the Moscow paper says.
In the discussion of that appeal,
Farid Mukhametshin, speaker of the Tatarstan State Council, said that without
the extension of the treaty there would be “legal collisions” between Moscow
and Kazan and htat any changes in the arrangements that the power-sharing
accord had specified would require a referendum in the republic to approve
constitutional changes.
Rafael Khakimov, vice president of
Tatarstan’s Academy of Sciences and former advisor to President Mintimer
Shaymiyev, told Kommersant that the
Kremlin proposal to extend the position of president of the republic was
acceptable and talks could certainly take place to discuss extending it
further.
But he pointed out that what Moscow
is doing violates federal law which called of retitling the office of president
of Tatarstan in 2016. Obviously,
Khakimov continued, there will be many issues that will now be “unregulated,” including
in particular the passport inserts Tatarstan now has, and will require
negotiations.
The treaty created a format for both
sides to operate. “It didn’t interfere with either side for ten years,” and
thus the question remains, why should it not be extended as Tatarstan wants?
Moscow undoubtedly has concluded that
by giving Kazan half a loaf, it can push the problem of relations between the
center and Tatarstan down the road even as it continues to chip away at
regional and republic rights in particular and Russian federalisms in general. But there are three reasons why the central authorities
are almost certainly wrong.
First, these talks are going to
attract the attention of officials in other republics and regions and thus open
the door to discussions about greater rights for the federal subjects whether
Moscow wants that or not. For 20 years, Tatarstan has stood as an exception. By
challenging that, Moscow will make other republics want to gain what Kazan
already has.
Second, Kazan can be counted on to
mobilize the Tatar nationalists in its population to try to put more pressure
on Moscow to make concessions. With the treaty, that strategy was precluded.
Now, it is the obvious one. As a result, more clashes are certain to occur in
the coming months.
And third, ethnic relations within
Tatarstan, which have been exemplary up to now, are likely to suffer. Some
Russian nationalists there have already called on Moscow take a tougher line (ruskline.ru/news_rl/2017/07/14/ne_dopustit_poowreniya_regionalnogo_ekstremizma/). They will be angry by what they will see as a
sell-out and that will cause problems too.
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