Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

116 Darrell Sliderpolitical experience that was higher by several orders of magnitude than thatof most new governors. In North Osetiya-Alalniya after Beslan, AlexanderDzasokhov was replaced by the head of the republic legislature TeimurazMamsurov. The Dagestan leader Magomedali Magomedov retired and wasalso replaced by the speaker of the parliament, Mukha Aliev. When thelong-time president of Kabardino-Balkariya, Valerii Kokov, resigned due toa serious ailment, he was replaced by a member of the State Duma andsuccessful entrepreneur, Arsen Kanokov. As factions began to divide theChechen leadership in early 2007, Putin pressured the elected president, AluAlkhanov, to resign in order to make way for the then prime minister of therepublic Ramzan Kadyrov.Implications for Russian federalism and democracyPutin’s elimination of gubernatorial elections fits a pattern of reducing thescope for independent institutions; checks and balances are viewed asobstacles to efficient, accountable decision-making. For the Kremlin, federalismand democracy are luxuries that Russia cannot afford at its currentstage of political development. In its place the Kremlin is proposing aRussian form of democratic federalism that is neither democratic nor federalist.In an interview on the American CBS news program ‘60 Minutes’ in May2005 Putin was asked whether ending elections was not a step away fromdemocratic principles. He rejected this view and argued that other democraticfederalist systems chose governors through appointments from thecentre. Putin pointed to India and saidIndia is called the largest world democracy. But their governors havealways been appointed by the central government, and nobody disputesthat India is a large democracy … The principle of appointing regionalleaders is not a sign of a lack of democracy. 39In point of fact, federalism makes little sense without the popular election ofregional executives. If regional decision makers are appointed and subject toremoval from the centre, they can hardly be viewed as having regionalinterests as their first priority. In India, which has a parliamentary form ofgovernment, the post of ‘governor’ is not the main locus of executive powerin a state; Indian states are run by the party or coalition that controls thestate legislative assembly. The Kremlin has also at times pointed to Nigeriaas an example of a federal system without regional elections, yet here too thereality is that it was the dictator Sani Abacha who suspended gubernatorialelections after his 1993 coup. When democracy returned to Nigeria in 1999,the new constitution again provided for popularly elected governors.Putin’s new system, if carried to its logical conclusion, would eliminate allelections for executive posts below that of Russian president, including those