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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Dagestani leader steps down |
| 2006-02-17 |
| Russia's oldest and longest-serving regional leader, Magomedali Magomedov, who has ruled volatile and clannish Dagestan since 1991, unexpectedly announced Thursday that he was stepping down, after meeting with President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin the day before. "I decided voluntarily to resign from the post of chairman of the State Council of Dagestan before my term expires," Magomedov said at a hastily called news conference at the Makhachkala airport Thursday afternoon, minutes after his plane arrived from Moscow. "I told the president I was getting old and asked him to accept my resignation," the 75-year-old Dagestani leader told shocked journalists. "The president agreed." Magomedov said he had brought with him the name of the Kremlin's candidate to succeed him, but he refused to disclose it. The State Council, a body symbolizing a collective presidency for representatives of the 14 biggest ethnic groups living in Dagestan, convened late Thursday to discuss the candidate. Dmitry Kozak, the presidential envoy in the Southern Federal District, was to visit Makhachkala on Friday and was expected to announce the candidate, a spokesman for Magomedov, Eduard Urazayev, told Interfax. The news agency, citing "unofficial information," said Magomedov had proposed Mukhu Aliyev, who has been the speaker of the Dagestani legislature since 1994. Aliyev, 65, is an ethnic Avar, representing the largest ethnic group in Dagestan, which has long been in competition for power with the second-largest group, the Dargins, to which Magomedov belongs. Dagestan's legislature, the People's Assembly, would have to vote on the Kremlin's nomination. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |