Ruslan Aushev tired of being senator

Today, Former Ingushetia President Ruslan Aushev said at a plenary session of the parliament’s upper chamber that he abdicated the authorities of a Federation Council member. He has been a senator for more than two months.

Such unexpected political moves are traditional for the former president of Ingushetia. Last year’s resignation from the presidential post comes to memory at once. Observers could not even guess why he did it. It is more likely that Ruslan Aushev thought it would be easier for him to lobby interests of the republic in the Federation Council. To be more precise, to lobby those political powers that support him. His expectations were not justified.

Ruslan Aushev himself explains that he had to resign because of still unsettled consequences of the 1992 Osetia – Ingushetia conflict. He is distressed with the fact that “thousands of North Ingushetia families still cannot return home since 1992.” It was an attempt of Aushev to draw attention of the senators to Chechnya once again. He announced that it was high time to look into the situation in the Chechen republic, where civilians and servicemen were still dying. In Aushev’s words, the Federation Council was to have examined living conditions of thousands of Chechen refugees in the tent camps. However, the former president of Ingushetia said that “the Federation Council ignores the situation. We do not settle it, and we even refuse to discuss the problems.” Thus, the upper chamber is losing its prestige. “It is not for me to work in this parliament; I withdraw," Ruslan Aushev said. Even regional governors and Duma deputies do not consider the Federation Council to be a great authority any more.

However, there is likely to be quite a different explanation of Aushev’s resignation. He failed to provide adequate support to his followers during the presidential elections in Ingushetia (second round of the elections is scheduled for next Sunday). As we know, Ruslan Aushev staked mostly on Former Interior Minister of the republic Khamzat Gutseriev and Duma deputy Alikhan Amirkhanov, but Gutseriev was removed from the election race even before the first round (the first round of elections took place on April 7). Alikhan Amirkhanov, who reached the second round together with another candidate, Murat Zyazikov, is very likely to be removed from the elections as well. The candidate is accused of bribing the electorate. It looks as if the accusations are not groundless. Ruslan Aushev, in his turn, accused officials from the southern federal district of “shattering the situation in the republic." He said that some departments even violated laws to put their candidate, Murat Zyazikov, on the presidential post in Ingushetia. “It is perfectly clear that Alikhan Amirkhanov will be removed from the election race on the very eve of voting. We should not be surprised with anything at all after such a scandalous removal of an evident leader, former Interior Minister Khamzat Gutseriev, from the election race," Ruslan Aushev says. In his words, the election events in Ingushetia are just “a test of new state technologies that provide for the participation of judicial, law enforcement, and governmental institutions in the removal of candidates who are disagreeable for the federal center from the election race.”

“We have seen such technologies in use in Primorye, the Kursk region, and now they are being implemented in Ingushetia," Aushev says.

It is not clear, by the way, why is the former Ingushetia president (and former senator, as it turns out now) is so upset with the situation. He is perfectly aware of political schemes. It is hardly likely that he knows nothing about the situation.

Aushev, who is politically isolated now, may serve an example for those regional leaders who are excessively independent. Ill-supported ambitions are worth nothing. In the end, Aushev lost this round of opposition to the federal center. People in the Kremlin are unlikely to be disappointed with his resignation. What is Aushev’s political future? It is the question only he himself is able to answer. He is really a very respectable man, and not in Ingushetia only. I believe that we will hear more about Ruslan Aushev in the future.

Vasily Bubnov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva