Yeltsin's pet dictator puts the revolution on hold

President Murtaza Rakhimov of Bashkortostan goes to polls next Sunday.

by Mark Franchetti, Ufa

THE face of President Murtaza Rakhimov is everywhere in Bashkortostan, an autonomous Russian republic that he rules with an iron fist from his imposing palace high above Ufa, the capital.

On landing here, nearly 1,000 miles east of Moscow, an airline stewardess hands passengers a booklet in which Rakhimov outlines his nationalist vision. The President, the oil-rich republic's only modern hotel, is plastered with posters of him. Political reports on the Muslim region's television station are about only Rakhimov.

One of 21 autonomous republics within Russia, Bashkortostan goes to the polls next Sunday in presidential elections. The result, however, is a foregone conclusion. Ask about politics and the replies are brief: ``Rakhimov always gets his way''.

Although Ufa is only a 2 1/2 -hour flight from Russia's capital, it might as well be on another continent as far as democratic reform is concerned.

Seven years after the collapse of the Soviet state, Bashkortostan is run like a feudal principality. The Kremlin --- wary of a potential separatist conflict like the one in Chechnya --- turns a blind eye in return for absolute political loyalty.

In an election that bears more resemblance to a sham poll in a Third World dictatorship, the 64-year-old Rakhimov is the only viable candidate. Three opposition leaders who collected enough signatures to run against him were barred.

``What is happening there is totalitarianism, pure and simple,'' said Valery Abramkin, of the Human Rights Watch group. ``The judiciary is under the government's control. There is no free press to speak of and everything is censored. There are only two small opposition papers, and they are published outside the republic.''

The native land of Bashkirs and Tartars --- two Muslim ethnic minorities --- the region was Russified in the 16th and 17th centuries and granted autonomous status in 1991 by Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president. Bashkirs now make up less than 20% of the population of 4m in an area the size of France, with its own budget, constitution and flag. Rakhimov, the former head of one of the largest Soviet oil refineries and an ethnic Bashkir, was elected in 1993 and has since turned the region into a family fiefdom.

Ural Rakhimov, his son, controls the oil industry, which has turned Bashkortostan into the former Soviet Union's largest refinery centre and provides the region with more than 60% of its income. The ruler's wife controlled oil exports until she retired two years ago, and her nephew heads the largest bank, which is exempt from tax.

``I expect to win,'' Rakhimov predicted with confidence last week in an interview with The Sunday Times. ``My people love me. Bashkortostan is my destiny. It's my motherland. I alone know its problems.'' He alone controls the political process, too.

Gulnaz Ahmetzianova, a university student, was working to register opposition candidates for the election, gathering the necessary signatures, when she and her supporters were brutally warned off.

``I had been collecting signatures against Rakhimov in my home village,'' said Ahmetzianova. ``Then, one night, about 20 policemen drove up in five cars. They went from house to house demanding to know whom everyone had signed for and why.''

The head of the collective farm where Ahmetzianova's father works threatened to sack him, and warned that his daughter would be thrown out of university for her ``subversive'' political activities.

The republic's electoral commission then refused to register the three would-be challengers, claiming the signatures on their registration lists had been forged or obtained under false pretences.

Until last week, Rakhimov was up against only one official candidate --- his own forestry minister --- who is fiercely loyal to him and who, opposition figures say, is running merely to create the illusion of a fair election.

Much to Rakhimov's irritation, Russia's Supreme Court ruled last week that Alexander Arinin, a wealthy deputy of the state duma, the Russian lower house of parliament, had been struck off illegally and should be allowed to run in the elections. The decision is unlikely to make much difference.

``Arinin will never be president,'' Rakhimov said. ``Our opposition candidates are not normal people. They are psychopaths. They are mentally disturbed schemers who have nothing to offer to the republic. What's all the fuss about? This is a free election.''

The people of Bashkortostan have little chance of judging the candidates for themselves. The news that Arinin was back in the race was not even reported last week in Bashkortostan. A television interview he gave in Moscow to a national channel was blocked and replaced with an hour of traditional music.

Last month Titan, a radio station closely linked to the Voice of America, had its power cut off while an interview with an opposition candidate was being aired.

Despite the dangers, hundreds of supporters formed a human chain around the radio station, where a 24-hour vigil was kept for a week to protect it from police who had sealed off the area. A tense stand-off followed.

``The police filmed the crowd and took down the car number plates,'' said Valentina Zhukova, a 50-year-old Russian demonstrator. ``The government's newspapers said we were junkies and alcoholics. Then they stormed the building, beating us and forcing us onto police buses. I myself was beaten and detained together with dozens of other protesters,'' she said, displaying black bruises all over her body.

Altaf Galeyev, Titan's head and a long-standing critic of Rakhimov, was arrested and has been in jail for 10 days on hunger strike.

The Kremlin, however, has shown little or no interest in the mounting evidence of repression. Yeltsin could never have won the last presidential elections without the active support of the country's ever more powerful regional leaders, including Rakhimov.

Whereas in Bashkortostan the Russian president fared badly in the first round of the elections, he won the second in a surprise comeback --- which may have had something to do with reports that ballots in favour of Gennady Zyuganov, the communist challenger, were seen floating down a river.

Rakhimov's support for Yeltsin allows him to rule without interference from the Kremlin. He has effectively won independence without seeking to break away from Russia.

``The price for this cosy little pact is democracy and civil rights,'' said Nikolai Petrov, an expert on Russia's regional politics. ``It's a mutual deal. For Yeltsin, it is votes. For Rakhimov it is independence. The consequence is that while Russia struggles towards democracy, it is also creating and then turning a blind eye to its little monarchies.''

To Rakhimov --- who claims that he works too hard to notice whether negative reports about his regime are taken off the air --- the debate about democracy is far more simple: ``In Russia we are a long way away from democracy. In Moscow the dictatorship of the party has been replaced by a dictatorship of money. Not here in Bashkortostan. Here we are working towards democracy.''

Оригинал. 7 июня 1998г. The Sunday Times (United Kingdom of Great Britain).