Ingush Head Kalimatov Using Outsiders to Distance Himself from Yevkurov Regime

Paul Goble

            Staunton, October 7 – Many Ingush are unhappy that Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov is bringing in people from outside the republic to fill key jobs in his government, Anton Chablin says; but they miss the fact that unless the new head does so, he won’t be able to distance himself from the regime of his disgraced predecessor, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov.

            Kalimatov has promoted several officials who spoke out against Yevkurov and he has appointed as heads of Ingushetia’s cities people who were not connected with the man he replaced, all of which will give him more authority and credibility with the Ingush population, the commentator says (6portal.ru/posts/кадровые-решения-калиматова-смятени/#more-616).

            More serious concerns, Chablin says, are that some of the outsiders, such as the new nationalities minister, an ethnic Rutul from Daghestan, have security backgrounds and that Kalimatov, while cutting some institutions, has in fact increased others in ways that set the stage for new conflicts within the government in Magas.

            In a second analytic piece posted online today, Naima Neflyasheva points out in her blog that many of the participants in the recent flash mob in support of Zarifa Sautiyeva and other prisoners are young people, a development that raises questions about the way in which youth are being politicized (kavkaz-uzel.eu/blogs/1927/posts/39910).

            She suggests that this shows an increasing readiness of young people to get involved in politics as well as a decreasing effort by their parents to keep them out of such activities.  And that in turn means that young Ingush are going to grow up far more politically oriented than their parents, a trend that may create problems for republic rulers.

            Meanwhile, in a combination of the most traditional and the most modern, representatives of two ancient Ingush teips, the Matiyevs and the Amerkkhanovs, used online hashtags to appeal to the authorities to release Sautiyeva and other prisoners from what the teips say is their illegal and indefensible imprisonment (facebook.com/fortangaORG/posts/394445614807566).