Wednesday, March 20, 2019

To Forestall New Ingush Protests, Yevkurov Temporarily Pulls Plan to Limit Referenda


Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 20 – Having triggered more than a month of massive public protests by his decision to transfer 26,000 hectares of land from Ingushetia to Chechnya last fall, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov has tried to avoid a repetition by a combination of increasing repression and occasional hints of compromise.

            One of the latter happened today: After introducing legislation that limiting any referenda that could be held in the republic, something the Ingush constitution currently requires for such things as land transfers and that the Ingush opposition wants, Yevkurov has pulled it for from immediate consideration (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/333192/, fortanga.org/2019/03/evkurov-otozval-zakonoproekt-iz-kotorogo-vypal-abzats/, and kommersant.ru/doc/3917399?from=main_3).

            It is not clear just how much of a concession this is. On the one hand, Yevkurov has offered several different explanations for why he pulled his proposal including the suggestion that a paragraph had been dropped from the text. And on the other, he says he will reintroduce in sometime in the next several months.

            This may buy him some time, but the opposition is still planning to resume protests calling not only for the annulment of the September 26 border accord but also the ouster of Yevkurov himself.  If anything, the divisions in Ingushetia appear to be deepening (capost.media/special/obzory/politobzor_skfo_s_11_po_18_marta_raskol_v_obshchestve_skfo_vse_glubzhe/).

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