Old Elite and Soviet-style System in new Bashkortostan Stifle Representative Democracy

Ildar Gabdrafikov and Aidar Enikeev

Throughout the period of relative autonomy in the 1990s, when the Russian Federation’s central authorities encouraged republics to establish their own leadership structures, the Republic of Bashkortostan maintained a Soviet-style authoritarian regime. In fact, the local elite, who were managers of industrial concerns and farms, took advantage of the freedom granted by the center to strengthen their grip on power in the republic.

The president of Bashkortostan is legally granted broad control over the government and legislature, and in practice he can assume even more power. The parliament, which is subordinate to the president, is packed with members of his faction. There are no real opposition parties in the parliament, and deputies who try to oppose the ruling regime are never successful. This legislature, which is merely a rubber stamp for the president, cannot be described as a representative organ.

Opposition outside of the parliament has little chance to affect political decisions in the republic, and there is no independent mass media or true freedom of speech.

The rigid vertical line of power does not allow for real local self-government. The republic’s legislation limits local self-government to villages and townships. The mayors of cities and leaders of district administrations are appointed by the president and do his bidding.

Because Bashkortostan is a polyethnic republic, it was always difficult to organize political movements along ethnic lines. Such organization is even more difficult given the current situation in the republic, which represses any kind of self organization by citizens. Issues affecting ethnic groups, such as the decision on the republic’s official languages, are made without really providing an opportunity for public debate or discussion in parliament. Most of the quasi-ethnic associations are controlled by the government, and do not provide a forum for real discussion. In particular, the republic’s large minority of Tatars is underrepresented, and has been denied the opportunity for ethno-cultural autonomy.

In this chapter, we will look closely at the history of the development of the governing structures in Bashkortostan and explain the process by which the existing elite were able to maintain control and establish a Soviet-style system for ruling the republic. We will analyze the pervasiveness of the ruling faction’s control, looking at how the opportunities for opposition are blocked on every level. This survey of the recent past and present will lead us to the conclusion that true democratic change in Bashkortostan will not occur until the central authorities of the Russian Federation show a real commitment to such change.

1. General Information on Today’s Bashkortostan

The Republic of Bashkortostan is situated in the Southern Urals, at the juncture of Europe and Asia. With a territory of 143,600 square kilometers (0.8 percent of the Russian Federation), it has 54 districts, 21 cities and 40 urban settlements. The population is 4.1 million, which is 2.8 percent of Russia’s total, and 65 percent of it is urban. The republic accounts for 3 percent of Russia’s national income. It is leading among the autonomous republics of the Russian Federation both for share of population, 2.7 percent, and its share of Russia’ gross domestic product, 2.3 percent, and is among the top 10 producing regions out of Russia’s 89 constituent territories.¹ 

The republic’s production is based on the least crisis-prone industries: The fuel and energy complex, chemical and petrochemical plants.²  Bashkortostan is one of Russia’s few donor regions. Its foreign trade turnover rose by 60 percent in 1994–1999 reaching $2.5 billion in 1999, and exports make up 85 percent of the total. More than 80 percent of its exports are products of fuel extraction and about 13 percent are products from the chemical and petrochemical industries.

The population is polyethnic, both in the countryside and in the cities. The major ethnic groups are Russians, with 38 percent of the population; Tatars, with 29 percent; and Bashkirs, with 22 percent. The largest groups accounting for the remaining 11 percent of the population are Chuvashis, Maris, Ukrainians, Udmurts, Germans, Mordovians, Latvians, Jews and others, living in compact settlements or dispersed among the population. The capital of the republic is Ufa, which has a population of 1.1 million; the other large cities are Sterlitamak, Salavat, Neftekamsk and Oktyabrsky.

The ethnic groups have essential differences in the degree of urbanization and different experience of urban existence. The Bashkirs, Chuvashis, Maris and Udmurts still remain predominantly rural people, to whom intensive urbanization came as late as the 1970s–80s. For that reason, the various ethnic groups in the cities have different levels of social and economic development.³  Russians make up the majority of population in nearly all the cities.

2. Bashkortostan and Regionalization

A study into the prospects of representative democracy and local self-government in Bashkortostan would be impossible without an analysis of the dynamics of the political process and the political system in the region in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Before the political reform initiated by the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) at the end of the 1980s, governance in Bashkortostan was part of a super-centralized unitary state system, which functioned through the local structures of the Communist Party. In those conditions, the regional Communist Party Committee of the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (BASSR) followed the policy of the central party leadership. This policy was realized through the USSR central government, the Russian Southern Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR) government and the autonomy’s local administrative organs, which included the BASSR Council of Ministers, various ministries and other departments. Despite the status and powers granted to the republic’s authorities by the Constitution at that time, they actually played no independent role, but were just the bottom rung of the centralized party-state government. The representative assemblies—the BASSR Supreme Soviet and the republic’s local Soviets—played a purely decorative role in that tightly closed system and had no influence on the decisions taken by the Communist Party organs. In the absence of competition under the Communist Party monopoly, the power status of the republic’s leaders was determined by their place in the ruling party hierarchy. Thus, no regional self-government actually existed.

The situation changed with the advent of Gorbachov’s perestroika (“restructuring”) and political reform, which sought to decentralize and liberalize the political system and was proclaimed at the 19th Communist Party conference. The more open policy of glasnost initiated by the top party leadership, the first contested elections for the USSR and RSFSR people’s deputies and the subsequent contested elections to the regional and local Soviets (councils) in the late 1980s and early 1990s opened the sphere of public politics in the republic.

Unlike many other regions of the USSR and the RSFSR, where the anti-Communist movement had already gained momentum by the end of the 1980s, in Bashkiria the position of its regional Communist Party Committee was unshaken until the radicalization of political processes beginning in 1989. Even then, despite the rising anti-Communist mood in much of Russia, Bashkiria’s local party nomenclature remained loyal to the republic’s party leadership. So the first secretary of the regional party committee, R. Khabibullin,⁴  was elected as a USSR people’s deputy in spring 1989 without much effort on his part. In fact his rivals had withdrawn their candidatures in his favor.

But the snowballing crisis of the CPSU and the weakening of the party structures in the republic undermined the status of the regional party committee and its leaders. Along with glasnost, democratization and decentralization from above, the reform of the economic system initiated under Gorbachov’s perestroika helped diminish the role of the party structures.

That situation gave more power to the region’s economic elite and the party officials close to this elite. The greatest influence in the republic that was to be called Bashkortostan belonged to the directors of the oil refineries and petrochemical works. The decentralization of the republic’s economic management gave these industrial bosses access to economic resources and stimulated cooperative links between them and the agrarian sector. These links involved material and financial patronage of the countryside by the leading industrialists. Given the weakened control from above, such mutually advantageous connections consolidated the power of the local elite and strengthened the motivation to seek autonomy from Russia’s central government. Industrial enterprises gained a certain degree of independence during the perestroika period, and the economic elite got a taste of autonomy, limited though it was. As a result of the elections of the USSR, RSFSR and BASSR people’s deputies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the industrialists gained enough political status to compete for power with the party and administrative nomenclature.

At about the same time, the CPSU encouraged a move toward a more federal style of government. Suddenly the party leaders in the republic were no longer mere agents of the central power, but to a certain extent became intermediaries between it and the local elite. Senior regional officials—including the first secretary of the Communist Party Committee, the chairman of the Council of Ministers and some others—were allowed to articulate local interests publicly, and even stand up for them in face of the central party leadership and administration. The idea of the regions becoming economically self-sufficient with wider autonomy—an idea that was filtered down from above—gained broad popularity.

The local elite embraced the concept of regional self-determination, based on the principles of “Soviet constitutionalism,” which followed, in turn, from the principle of national self-determination. Though it was not as dominant a factor in Bashkiria as it was in the constituent republics of the USSR, the local elite used nationalist sentiment as an ideological resource in its struggle with the central government. It was not only attractive to nationalistic groupings, but also to the entire local elite, for it legitimized their desire to control the region’s economic resources.

The ideology of regionalization gained a new impulse later, when practically every autonomy of the Russian Federation, one after another, declared its sovereignty, but its initial components were laid down in the late perestroika period.

3. The Republic’s Elite and Political Leadership

Although perestroika brought on a fragmentation of the republic’s party nomenclature, it did not involve any ideological split or polarization. Political rivalry between elite groupings in Bashkortostan were mostly of a personal nature and had always been shaped by “patron-client” relations. Factions were formed by a clientele attached to this or that leader, who held an important post in the party, administrative or economic system.

Given the weak ideological differences of the elite, changing sides or passing from one group to another had no serious influence on a politician’s public position. And the complicated relationships between the interests of groupings of industrial and agricultural elite made it difficult to sort out these groupings on the basis of their institutional connections. A party functionary may have backed the interest of a specific economic faction for his own purposes. Conversely, economic factions might have sought influence among agents in the party and administrative structures. An appreciation of this interaction among the elite is useful in trying to understand the struggle for leadership in the republic.

That struggle was in full swing in the run-up to the elections of the RSFSR people’s deputies and the republic’s Supreme Soviet. Taking advantage of the atmosphere of change, R. Gareyev, the first secretary of the Communist Party Committee in the city of Ufa, mobilized the support of the local party and economic elite, as well as the city’s intellectuals, by playing the role of reformer. His group demanded the resignation of the former leadership: the bureau of the CPSU’s regional committee, headed by R. Khabibullin. Although his reformist faction did encourage the bureau’s entire line-up to resign, on Feb. 10, 1990, Gareyev failed to raise sufficient support for himself among the rest of the party nomenclature. The post of the first secretary of the CPSU was won by I. Gorbunov, the former first secretary of Ufa’s Ordzhonikidze District party committee.

As a result of that conflict, and the general crisis of the CPSU, Khabibullin was removed, but his rivals were also hurt in the fallout. Because Gareyev—along with M. Mirgazyamov, chairman of the Council of Ministers, and some other members of his government—had all been members of the CPSU bureau, they held weaker positions in the pre-election maneuvering.

The election, and ensuing activity of the republic’s 12th Supreme Soviet (1990–1995), marked a new stage in the formation of the region’s political regime and its power organs.

The first election allowing more than one candidate to run for a seat in the Supreme Soviet demonstrated the weakness of the emerging public, political and ethnic associations. These new groups were still unable to compete with the old guard. As a result, the republic’s leadership did not change dramatically, and the old party, administrative and economic nomenclature gained democratic legitimacy. In other regions, a political rift between the ruling party nomenclature and opposition from within, or outside, the party had occurred before the elections. But in Bashkiria, such tendencies were less pronounced.

The region’s ethnic associations were relatively weak because nationalistic ideology was ineffective in the polyethnic republic. Members of the largest urban ethnic groups, Russians and Tatars, had a high status among the elite, and even with the usual Soviet policy of preference for the “indigenous” nation, they felt rather comfortable.⁵  The most active ethno-political association, “Rus,” was set up later, in 1992, and in time it did become the center of the opposition in the republic, but it could not affect the first election. Radical demands by some Bashkir associations stirred limited public response. Instead of gaining power for themselves, those associations formed a resource for the existing leadership by symbolizing the ethnic element in the ideology of the republic’s sovereignty. On the whole, that ideology was compatible with the theory and practice of “Soviet constitutionalism.”

Owing to all those factors, the Supreme Soviet elected from March 5–18, 1990 was dominated by party functionaries of all levels and members of the economic elite.

Table 1. The Composition of the BASSR Supreme Soviet, Elected in 1990

Social and Professional Groups Number of Deputies

Com. Party, trade-union, Young Com. League functionaries 70

Members of the state apparatus 52

People working in industry, transport, communications 29

People working in agriculture 29

Managers of collective farms 27

People working in education 7

Scientists, writers and other intellectuals 13

People working in health services 20

Total 247

Source: Data from Bashkortostan’s Central Election Commission.

M. Rakhimov, director of an oil refinery in Ufa, was elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet. Being head of a profit-making concern in a reforming economy had given Rakhimov a certain amount of influence among the local elite. He had an advantage over the other candidates for the post, most of whom were CPSU functionaries, because he had been elected a USSR people’s deputy in 1989. In the speeches he gave in that capacity, Rakhimov showed an inclination to reconcile different interests and avoid extreme positions, a tendency that made his political image acceptable to the old guard. He also apparently secured the support of the chairman of the Council of Ministers and some other members of the former bureau of the regional CPSU: Rakhimov openly supported the candidature of Mirgazyamov for the post of the chairman of the Council of Ministers. Many other members of the government who had been members of the former bureau also retained their ministerial posts.

In campaigning to be chairman of the newly-elected Supreme Soviet, Rakhimov espoused the rhetoric of the regional elite. He agreed with the popular ideas of maintaining a law-based state, solving social and ecological problems and striving toward economic and political sovereignty for the republic. In the ensuing balloting, Rakhimov won 125 votes compared to 51 for M. Rezbayev, the first secretary of the Sterlitamak city CPSU committee, and 32 for Gareyev. In the second round, Rakhimov beat his rival Rezbayev by 28 votes.

By the time Rakhimov became head of the Supreme Soviet—or regional legislature—it was a position of considerable power in the republic. Back in autumn 1989, the BASSR’s 11th Supreme Soviet had made amendments to the republic’s Constitution, to give more responsibility to its representative organ. These amendments were similar to the changes being made at the time in the Constitutions of the USSR and the RSFSR. Though the amendments introduced some elements of division between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of power, the differentiation of their functions was still vague, and they were not properly balanced. Along with legislative and representative functions, the republic’s Supreme Soviet was given managerial functions that are uncharacteristic of a legislature. The Supreme Soviet had the power to form the republic’s government, the Council of Ministers, whose executive functions were limited under the Constitution to mostly social and economic spheres. The prime minister did not have the right to dissolve the Supreme Soviet, as is usually the case in the classical parliamentary system. Furthermore, the members of the government could not have the status of deputies of the Supreme Soviet.⁶ 

The chairman of the Supreme Soviet was also given an unusual amount of power. Apart from purely organizational functions, he presented to the legislature candidates for the posts of chairman of the Council of Ministers, chairman of the Supreme Court and chairman of the State Arbitration Court. In other words, he combined the functions of the parliamentary speaker, the head of the republic and the head of the government.

The Supreme Soviet did not work on a permanent basis. The only full-time deputies were those who formed its Presidium: the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, his first deputy and the chairmen of the permanent commissions. In 1990, the rights of the Presidium were widened. The structure of the legislature also included permanent and temporary commissions and groups, formed by rank-and-file deputies.

The Supreme Soviet was above the local power organs—the Soviets and their executive committees—in the power vertical. The institutional system favored a monopoly of state power. The group controlling the post of the chairman of the Supreme Soviet had a considerable advantage over all others.

The Supreme Soviet formed the Presidium at its first session. Initially the body was to include 11 members; in autumn 1991, its line-up was enlarged to 23. The key role in the Presidium was played by its chairman, Rakhimov, who represented the republic in its power struggle with the federal center. Under federalization, the political status of the regional legislature’s leader was the mainstay in the local elite’s battle with Russia’s central government for control of the region’s economic resources. In his initial months as head of the Bashkir Supreme Soviet, Rakhimov demonstrated the power of his grouping. He did this by employing a consistent strategy of consolidating different local elites and gaining more independence for the republic.

It was clear from the outset that the atomized composition of the legislature made it incapable of self-organization. Most of the deputies were not professional politicians. They represented only narrow corporate interests and treated their mandates as an extra duty on top of their principal occupation. They had no special knowledge of the mecha-nisms used in public politics and no concept of parliamentary strategy and tactics. Rakhimov’s opponents were unable to use the public platform that parliament offered to their advantage: Even when his positions were rather weak, they failed to offer consistent criticism. None of the other deputies tried actively to set up any parliamentary factions. The opposition had vague strategies, and its would-be leaders were just drifting with the political currents. This was particularly evident in the period between 1990–91, when Rakhimov’s power was consolidated.

Rakhimov also benefited because ordinary deputies did not have a clear-cut mechanism for decision making that they could control. At first the Supreme Soviet had provisional rules that were often broken. In practice, it was quite usual to take a second vote on decisions that had already been passed, to make amendments via oral suggestion and to pass hasty resolutions without thorough debate. The deputies in the republic’s Supreme Soviet were rather passive, but often intolerant of a minority or an individual opinion. There were no set rules of the game, so it was useless to appeal to the formal procedure. That situation made it easier for the ruling group rallying around Rakhimov to manipulate the other deputies.

The dominance of the Supreme Soviet’s leadership began to take hold after it passed the Declaration of Bashkortostan’s State Sovereignty in autumn 1990. This dominance was further asserted in June 1991, when the legislature passed amendments to the republic’s Constitution. The gist of the amendments was to raise the status of the Presidium and the chairman of the Supreme Soviet—actually giving him presidential powers—at the expense of the status of the chairman of the Council of Ministers. That initiative met with considerable opposition, from deputies who criticized it for running counter to Russia’s federal legislation and for being introduced with a breach of the regulations.

By the time these amendments were proposed, Rakhimov’s leadership had gained much strength. The only way for Prime Minister Mirgazyamov to fight this challenge to his power would have been to take the conflict from the realm of a confrontation within the legislature to the realm of public politics, a move which he failed, or did not wish, to take. Even when the bill was only passed by a minimal majority, and then postponed by Rakhimov after its initial reading, Mirgazyamov did not launch an active campaign against the amendments. Eventually the amendments passed by 221 votes.

In passing these amendments, Rakhimov took full advantage of his status and demonstrated a shrewd ability to utilize coalitions. It was not by chance that he was supported by his potential opponent, R. Kadyrov, the head of Vostok, the republic’s largest commercial bank. At the same time, Rakhimov also received support from Gorbunov, the first secretary of the republic’s Communist Party organization, N. Shvetsov, president of the building cooperatives’ union, and members of the agrarian sector. Being sensitive to the moods of the deputies’ corps, Rakhimov did his best to play the role of a consolidating figure.⁷ 

Under the amendments to Articles 102 and 103 of the Constitution, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet obtained the status of the highest official in the republic, representing it in the relations with the state organs of the USSR, the RSFSR and on the international level. He also received a right to issue decrees and ordinances that became mandatory on the territory of his republic. Another important prerogative was a right to make proposals to the Supreme Soviet, and between its sessions to its Presidium, on changing the line-up or reforming the structure of the government and other executive organs and their appointees. The head of the government and its other members now had to submit all their appointments to the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, who was also responsible for proposing the line-up of the Constitutional Supervision Committee. Amendments to Articles 111 and 112 made the Council of Ministers accountable to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Amendments to Articles 115 and 117 obliged the executive organs to obey not only the decisions of the Supreme Soviet, but also of its chairman and Presi-dium. Amendments to Article 102 gave the deputies of the chairman of the Supreme Soviet the right to coordinate the work of the parliamentary commissions, and to prepare questions to be considered by the Supreme Soviet.⁸ 

The efforts to raise the status of the Supreme Soviet’s leadership was motivated by a need to secure the independence of the republic’s state organs, and, on the whole, these efforts echoed the processes in other republics, where the institution of a presidency was introduced. But, in practice, the measures further weakened the collegial element in the work of the legislature and increased the distance between ordinary deputies and the leadership.

With time, the influence of the chairman and the Presidium as the center of decision-making continued to grow. All more-or-less important decisions were initiated by the leadership of the Supreme Soviet. The Presidium fully controlled the legislative and constitutional processes. The Supreme Soviet leadership always conducted negotiations with the USSR and later Russia’s central government. The majority of the deputies had minimal opportunities for control. Their commissions usually handled decisions prepared in advance by the leadership. The feedback between the ordinary deputies and the top leaders was rather weak.

4. The Early 1990s: An Attempt to Form Political Opposition

Since there was no effective opposition within the Supreme Soviet of Bashkortostan, opposition factions that had failed to get enough deputies elected focused their activities on the representative organs of the large and medium-sized cities of the republic, including Ufa, Sterlitamak, Salavat, Neftekamsk and Beloretsk. Other opponents of the ruling elite included some of the deputies to the legislatures of the USSR and RSFSR.

During the general upsurge of the democratic movement in Russia in spring 1991, there was an attempt to create an opposition faction of deputies at the sixth session of the republic’s Supreme Soviet. The group, called “Sodruzhestvo” (“Concord”), and led by R. Bignov, a deputy in the RSFSR Supreme Soviet, and B. Urazbayev, a deputy in the Supreme Soviet of Bashkortostan, wanted to give full rights to the Soviets, as elected representative organs, with clear delimitation of their powers at different levels. Concord favored a reformed Russian Federation, with sovereign Bashkortostan as one of its founding members, the equality of all forms of property, the development of market relations, the equality of nations and ecological safety. The founders of the movement insisted on the priority of individual human rights over the rights of nations, and they favored observing parliamentary regulations and respecting the status of the people’s deputies.

The vague and general character of the group’s program reflected their amorphous strategy. Nevertheless, they tried to find their niche in the political system. The peak of their activity was in the autumn of 1991, when the group numbered 40 deputies. After the failed coup in Moscow in August 1991, members of Concord tried unsuccessfully to unite all democratically minded people in the republic in a Congress of Democratic Forces.⁹  At the seventh, extraordinary, session of the republic’s Supreme Soviet, the group made a move against its own leadership, accusing the leaders of having supported the faction that attempted the coup in Moscow and urging them to resign voluntarily. Concord, and its leaders, failed to shape up as a serious political force. In the eighth session of the republic’s Supreme Soviet, in autumn 1991, they were unable to win enough votes to call a new election of the Presidium’s full line-up. And they failed to secure any representation in the partial changes to the Presidium. On the whole, the strategy of the group was ill-conceived, and its actions were poorly coordinated.

Apart from subjective factors, the failures of the democratic group had some objective causes. To begin with, it was set up when it had already become obvious that Rakhimov’s faction dominated the Supreme Soviet. Given its fragmentation and lack of effective resources, the opposition could probably be united if the federal government had chosen a consistent policy of full-scale democratization, but federal deputies never dared to do that. The local democratizing forces failed because the federal powers could not agree on a further strategy for developing political reforms in Russia. In fact, the initiative of setting up the above-said democratic association was the first and only attempt in the republic to form an opposition with any real claim to influence on a parliamentary basis. Though some opposition factions later rallied around this or that leader, they never posed a real challenge to the entrenched leadership.

Further steps toward asserting the power of Rakhimov’s faction involved removing his opponents, Prime Minister Mirgazyamov and Kadyrov, the banker. Until the actual introduction of the institution of the presidency in December 1993, relations between Bashkortostan’s Supreme Soviet and its Council of Ministers developed in the framework of the Soviet-parliamentary system. Their relationship mirrored other regions of Russia, where power was also concentrated in the representative organ. The dominating role of the Supreme Soviet had been evident since its election, and it was further bolstered by the effect of federalization. With the weakening vertical link between the federal and republic executive powers, and the strengthening political status of Bashkortostan’s Supreme Soviet, the Council of Ministers, which used to play a key role in budget formation, was losing its power. While this was happening, the Council of Ministers did not rally around its chairman to fight as a single team to maintain their power.

Despite some differences between the government and the Supreme Soviet—including friction that emerged in the first session concerning a number of ministerial appointments—relations between the legislative and executive branches did not reach open conflict for some time. The real confrontation between Mirgazyamov and Rakhimov surfaced and became public after the republic signed the Federation Treaty in March 1992. The conflict was concluded in December 1992, when, in its 13th session, the Supreme Soviet passed a no-confidence vote against the government.¹⁰ 

The successful signing of the Federation Treaty helped consolidate the position of the leadership of the Supreme Soviet and gave it the power it needed to dissolve the government. More certainty in relations with the federal center meant that the significance of the status-quo among different factions within the local elite was less important. The concentration of power in the republic was accompanied by the marginalization of those already weak political factions that had failed to secure seats in the Supreme Soviet, which, in turn, was being pushed to the sideline of the political process by the elite. During this period, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet seized the right to appoint the heads of city and rural administrations. Previously, these had been elected by the local Soviet. All this took place at a time of waning public and political activity, and growing apathy of the population, caused by the advent of economic “shock therapy.”

The presidential election in December 1993 was, therefore, held at the moment when Rakhimov and his faction held maximum resources in their hands, so his victory over the banker Kadyrov was a foregone conclusion.

The introduction of the presidency, combined with the vertical line of power inherited from the Soviet epoch, completed the institutional shape of a political regime that was gaining more and more authoritarian features.

5. The Role of the 12th Supreme Soviet of the Republic (1990–1995)

The domination of the leadership of the Supreme Soviet, and the amorphous political structure of the rest of that legislature, became ever more pronounced as its hierarchy developed. As a result, that representative body did not allow for valid political interaction. Deputies flocked together on a territorial or occupational basis, or were united by some other interests, but no stable, concrete factions developed. Those groupings that did form were created by corporate interests, had no stable organization and could not truly claim an independent role in the political process within the hierarchical structure of the Supreme Soviet.

Among the more conspicuous of these groups, apart from directors of industrial enterprises, were agrarian deputies, who already made their presence felt in the first session. Their activities were mostly limited to lobbying. Activists of the ecological movement articulated their interests and problems after a wave of a public outcry caused by a disastrous phenol leak at the Khimprom plant in Ufa in 1990. Their representative became chairman of one of the parliamentary commissions. From time to time, the Supreme Soviet debated the problems of ethnic structure and inter-ethnic relations. Ad hoc deputies’ commissions were set up on some special or urgent issues, and they made reports on their activities at the Supreme Soviet sessions. In some cases, the deputies representing the interests of the medical profession or school teachers voiced their demands.

At the 10th session of the Supreme Soviet, in February 1992, a group of 35 deputies from the oil-producing regions set up an association called “The West,” with the aim of fair re-distribution of oil proceeds in the republic to solve the ecological and economic problems of the western areas. The group was backed by Rakhimov and was represented in the presidium, but it hardly played any independent role. The most prominent of all the independent deputies’ factions was the above-mentioned democratic Concord.

There were some instances when Bashkortostan’s Supreme Soviet did perform, to a certain extent, the functions of social representation. In spring 1992, at their extraordinary session, the deputies debated the emergency situation caused by the phenol leak into the Belaya River near the Khimprom plant and passed some resolutions on the matter. At another session around the same time, deputies from environmentally pressured regions blocked a draft resolution that could have allowed for increased atmospheric pollution. The resolution had been put forth by the directors of the Ufa oil refineries and backed by Rakhimov.

Certain compromises were made between different groupings in the process of drafting and passing the Declaration of State Sovereignty in summer and autumn of 1990.¹¹  At the center of the debate was the status of the republic within the USSR and the RSFSR. At first, the leadership of the Supreme Soviet moved the radical proposal that Bashkortostan should be made a constituent member of the USSR, but in the course of the discussions it modified its position, and the third session of the Supreme Soviet passed a declaration closer to the one suggested by its working group, which had been set up on the initiative of the Presidium. That edition proclaimed Bashkortostan a constituent territory of both the USSR and the RSFSR. Its opponents, above all, the Ufa City Council, had been against passing the declaration at the Supreme Soviet session and proposed holding a referendum on the issue. They eventually had to compromise.

The final version of the Declaration of State Sovereignty did not contain a definition of state languages. The Bashkir national center “The Urals” had proposed its own draft declaration that would make Bashkir the only official language. Another draft, prepared by Professor Z. Uraksin and his group, had proposed two state languages, Bashkir and Russian. The deputies of the Ufa City Council advocated three: Bashkir, Russian and Tatar, which would be a concession to the republic’s largest ethnic groups. A similar position was taken by the Tatar public center of Bashkiria. Given that controversy, the draft prepared by the working group of the Presidium, which contained no mention of the state language, looked like a compromise. But the Presidium did give priority to the Bashkir nation in the definition of the republic’s state sovereignty: “... realizing the right of the Bashkir nation to self-determination and guaranteeing equality of rights to all nations ....” An earlier draft suggested guaranteeing the right of all nations in the republic to self-determination. That draft was, incidentally, supported by the democratically-minded RSFSR people’s deputies representing Bashkiria.

Some interaction was also observed on the question of holding a referendum on the introduction of a presidency in Russia. In the fifth session of the Supreme Soviet in March 1991, the Bashkir regional Communist Party Committee, which usually loyally supported any policy adopted by the Supreme Soviet, took an independent stand in arguing against the referendum. The committee argued that a presidency in Russia would jeopardize Bashkortostan’s independence, and many deputies supported that point of view. The democratic deputies took the opposite stand: They called for giving the population a free choice. A third variant, which was proposed by the Presidium, was the one finally passed: Even before the session it had issued a document for holding that referendum in Bashkiria, in keeping with the similar decision by the Presidium of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. In the end, only eight deputies voted against the ordinance prepared by the Presidium, which favored holding the referendum but expressed a negative attitude to the very idea of a presidency in Russia. The ordinance demonstrated a desire for independence while indicating adherence to Russia’s laws and democratic procedures. The compromise document was an indication of the balance of forces in the Supreme Soviet at the time, as well as a demonstration of the pragmatic approach of its leaders to a problem with ideological coloring.¹² 

At times the Supreme Soviet did serve as a venue where some social interests were expressed: In 1992, an extraordinary session was called to discuss the problems of the agrarian sector, and teachers and medical professionals have also voiced their demands. But the role of the Supreme Soviet as a representative institution diminished as the republic’s authorities strengthened their autonomy from the federal government. A certain line was drawn in that sense by the spring 1992 signing of the Federation Treaty.

During 1993–1995, Rakhimov’s faction finally consolidated its power. In December 1993, Rakhimov was elected President of Bashkortostan, and since that time, the Supreme Soviet practically only rubber-stamped the policies of the ruling elite, playing a less and less significant role in public politics. It was in that later period of its work that the legislature passed the Constitution and the laws setting the structure and the functions of the state powers in the republic. In spite of Rakhimov’s dominance of the body, the Supreme Soviet was a symbol of the republic’s sovereignty and made a significant contribution to the development of Bashkortostan’s statehood by offering an alternative to the CPSU structures, and later, to Russia’s federal power.

In 1990–1995, the Supreme Soviet passed 13 codes and over 200 legislative acts. Many of these laws aimed at strengthening the republic’s autonomy, while many others regulated the mechanism of legislative activity. One of the authors of the republic’s Constitution recalled ironically in an informal discussion that the deputies sometimes took a federal law for a model and just slightly modified the wording without changing the content—being able to say that they had created their own, separate, system of legislation was an end in itself. And it was in that initial period of the Supreme Soviet that the so-called “war of laws” began. The number of laws passed was taken as the principal indicator of the development of regional legislation, so their content seemed less important.

The early Supreme Soviet was also instrumental in giving the present political regime its final shape: It was a kind of institutional niche in which the republic’s political elite consolidated and received, as a result of the elections, democratic legitimacy.

6. The Legal (Constitutional) Peculiarities of Emerging Statehood

Although the Constitution of Bashkortostan was passed in 1993,¹³  shortly after Russia’s, its principal premises contradicted the federal Constitution. There were contradictions in the section setting the basis of constitutional order, the status of the republic and the system of power organs—including local self-government organs. Local legislative acts, passed in 1994–1999 to develop constitutional provisions, only increased the differences. Citing the republic’s sovereignty and regional peculiarities, local legislators revised or ignored not only the provisions of Russia’s federal Constitution, but also the basic principles of modern constitutionalism. They disregarded concepts like division of the branches of power, basic parliamentary principles and guarantees of local self-government. The quality and tendencies of the local legislation reflected the degree to which the federal center could, or could not, influence the constitutional and general legal process in the region. In fact, the regional autonomy enjoyed by Russia’s republics helped to conserve some elements of so-called “Soviet constitutionalism.” Apart from deviations from the federal norms that regulate relations between power organs, the Republic of Bashkortostan’s Constitution is eclectic and contains internal contradictions. Initially, the contradictions and inconsistencies in the Constitution might have been due to incompetence in the theory and practice of modern constitutionalism, as well as the inertia of Soviet legal stereotypes. But later, the Constitution’s peculiarities seemed to be part of a deliberate strategy of the ruling faction, which, in the absence of adequate resistance from the federal center or local the opposition, sought to adapt the rules of the game to its own needs.

Some of the sporadic amendments of the law, which were supposed to bring it more in line with federal standards, looked like ineffective, cosmetic concessions, designed to demonstrate loyalty to the center. When repealing or amending laws that limited electoral rights, legislators compensated by putting new obstacles in the way of citizens’ active participation in political life. Given the weakness of the federal government at that time, the republic’s authorities blatantly ignored the principles and provisions of Russia’s Constitution and other federal laws.

When local legislators used the constitutional experience of democratic countries, they only copied the external form of some institution, again for cosmetic purposes. But, in the interests of the ruling elite, these institutions were left without the conditions necessary for functioning in a democratic manner. Legislators could also copy the flawed norms of the federal law, which contained many imperfections and omissions and left wide room for interpretations that favored the ruling elite.

As a result of these maneuverings, the basic principles laid down in the republic’s new Constitution often turned out to be empty declarations that were not truly democratic in their content, let alone in practical application. Thus, the republic’s Constitution was even more inconsistent with democracy than the federal one. On the federal level, the content of the laws were generally fair and democratic, and inconsistencies only appeared in the implementation of those laws.

A classic example of the lack of balance in the Constitution of Bashkortostan is the regulation of state power in the republic. The essence of the republic’s political system is expressed in a hierarchical power vertical, with minimal autonomy for power centers in both the horizontal and vertical direction. Bashkortostan’s Constitution proclaims the principle of division of powers, but the republic’s legislation has established a mixed type of institutional system, combining the features of both the presidential and presidential-parliamentary models.

The president is elected by a general election for a term of five years and no more than two terms. The office may be contested by a citizen over 35 and under 65 years of age who has command of the Bashkir and Russian languages and has lived in the republic at least 10 years. Under the Constitution, the president takes part in forming the government: He appoints and dismisses the prime minister with the consent of the State Assembly and appoints other cabinet members at the proposal of the prime minister. He also directs the government’s activities, appoints and dismisses mayors of cities and heads of rural administrations and has a right of legislative initiative. The president forms and heads the Security Council and presents to parliament candidates for the posts of chairman of the Constitutional Court, chairman of the Supreme Court and judges in high and local courts. As the head of the republic, the president performs representative functions and acts as guarantor of human and civil rights and freedoms. Along with parliament, he conducts internal and external policies. He presents the budget to the State Assembly and reports on that budget’s execution.

Some of the presidential powers exceed those granted to the republic by Russia’s federal Constitution. In particular, the republic’s Constitution says the president has a right to pardon citizens convicted on the strength of the republic’s laws. And Russia’s Constitution is also exceeded by measures that allow the president to protest against, or suspend on the territory of Bashkortostan, the acts of Russia’s federal state organs.

The functions of the executive organ, the Cabinet of Ministers, are limited to the eco-nomic and social spheres. The cabinet is responsible to the State Assembly, and the assembly can dissolve the cabinet by passing a vote of no confidence—a law that is characteristic of the presidential-parliamentary system. The president, however, has no right to dissolve parliament. But the president still has an inordinate amount of power: He sets the vertical line of power from the top to the municipal level, and the parliament has no autonomy from the president. The old Soviet-style authoritarian administrative regime, under which the republic’s parliament has to function, actually devalues the powers formally granted to it. Overall, the power organs do not form a system of checks and balances.

7. The Powers and Structure of Parliament

Under Article 79 of Bashkortostan’s Constitution, the State Assembly, or Kurultai, is the supreme representative organ and the only legislative organ in the republic.

As in the “Red Belt” regions, and some other republics of the Russian Federation—including Tatarstan and Udmurtia—Bashkortostan’s State Assembly is granted sweeping powers¹⁴  by Article 88 of the Constitution. The State Assembly passes and amends the Constitution; passes legal codes and other laws of the republic; adopts, jointly with the president, the republic’s internal and external policies; passes and executes the state budget; sets the administrative territorial structure of the republic; forms new districts; changes the republic’s borders; approves the president’s appointment of the prime minister; appoints the republic’s human rights ombudsman; elects the chairman of the republic’s Constitutional Court; and passes votes of confidence or no-confidence on the president and the cabinet.

Parliament also has the right to cancel decisions of local representative organs, and presidential decrees or orders, if these are incompatible with the law. This right is a vestige of the old Soviet system and violates the principle of division of powers. Both parliament and the president received powers outside the competence of the republic according to the federal Constitution. For instance, the republic’s Constitution says parliament can appoint the republic’s prosecutor and elect the Supreme Court, the High Arbitration Court and the judges of local courts.

The amendments and supplements to the republic’s constitution, introduced by the State Assembly on Nov. 3, 2000, changed the situation somewhat.¹⁵  Some presidential and parliamentary powers that had contradicted Russia’s Constitution were brought in line with the federal law. Some provisions were struck down as being incompatible with the principle of division of powers in the horizontal or vertical direction. But the amendments did not make an essential change in the republic’s power system, which still retains its strong hierarchical structure.

8. The Peculiarities of the Structure of Bashkortostan’s Parliament

Bashkortostan’s Constitution sets a two-chamber structure of parliament. Back in 1994, the republic’s Supreme Soviet passed the law “On the State Assembly of the Republic of Bashkortostan,” which defined the procedure of elections and the powers and competence of the new parliament’s chambers. The legislative chamber had 40 deputies, the upper chamber, called the House of Representatives, had 154 deputies. An amendment in autumn 1998 reduced the lower chamber to 30 deputies and the upper one to 144. The upper chamber is elected according to the majority system from two-mandate electoral districts, formed in keeping with the administrative units—rural and city districts. The lower, legislative chamber is also elected under the majority system, from one-mandate districts that have approximately equal populations. Though it is granted sweeping powers, parliament today is actually an institution of administrative-corporate representation, and it plays a minimal role in the political process.

Officials holding posts in the executive branch of power are banned from simultaneously having deputies’ mandates in the lower chamber. But the House of Representatives does not have this restriction. This upper chamber is usually packed with members of the executive branch, a situation which contravenes both the principle of the division of powers and the principle of the chambers’ autonomy.

Unlike most other parliaments, in Russia and elsewhere around the world, the number of deputies in the upper chamber exceeds the number of the lower one. Given their composition and the distribution of their functions, having more members adds to the upper chamber’s power. For example, some decisions are taken at joint sessions, so the upper chamber, which is more than three times larger than the lower one, actually determines the result of these votes.

Bashkortostan’s parliamentary system is also different from most parliaments in the authority of the two chambers. In standard practice worldwide, the lower house usually has wider powers: It is there that important bills are considered, control is exercised over executive organs and ministers, judges and other officials are appointed. With only a few exceptions, in most parliaments the budget is usually handled by the lower chamber. The role of the upper house, in standard practice, is most often limited to a right of veto.

But, even in the old edition of the law “On the Republic of Bashkortostan State Assembly,” passed March 2, 1994, all important decisions were subject to joint competence of both the legislative chamber and the House of Representatives. Among the decisions they made jointly were the following:

• passing and amending the Constitution;

• defining, jointly with the president, internal and external policies;

• approving the president’s appointment of the prime-minister;

• passing a vote of confidence or impeachment of the president;

• passing a vote of confidence or dismissal of the cabinet;

• electing the Constitutional Court, its chairman and his deputy;

• approving the president’s proposals on setting up or closing down ministries or state committees;

• calling parliamentary, presidential and local elections; and approving the line-up of the Central Election Commission;

• canceling the president’s decrees and ordinances if they contradict the Constitution.

The original law “On the Republic of Bashkortostan State Assembly,” also said that, in passing the budget, the lower chamber could only pass the revenue section. Decisions on budget expenditures were subject to the joint competence of both chambers. These parallel functions patently breached the principle of division of powers—and were absurd given the upper chamber’s structure: Even though it was in practice packed with the president’s appointees, the House of Representatives was supposed to control the executive power.

Amendments to the law, passed Nov. 26, 1998, did not really demarcate the functions of the two chambers, but only confirmed the order under which some vital questions are considered at their joint sessions. Furthermore, both chambers have the same leadership, which makes the assembly’s division into chambers rather unreal. Given all these unusual features, Bashkortostan’s State Assembly is highly uncharacteristic of modern parliamentarism. It is a mechanism providing complete domination of the executive branch of power over the legislative one. A system of checks and balances in this model is not even theoretically possible.

9. The Ruling Elite’s Views on Statehood and Democratic Institutions

The ruling elite attached great importance to creating elements of statehood: The presidency, the two-chamber parliament and the Constitutional Court were seen as important steps in building up a state, as symbols of the republic’s independence. Judging by the official rhetoric, the role of democratic institutions was interpreted rather dubiously, often contrary to the principles of constitutionalism. For instance, in the president’s opinion, the role of parliament should be limited to legislation, and its representative function is unimportant. Furthermore, the president said, the executive organs should have priority in the legislative process. He also said that he saw political factions within parliament as a deviation from the norm.¹⁶  The principal political formula of the president and his faction was “stability on the basis of full control.” His government’s pronouncements on the need to develop democracy, including local self-government, were followed by complaints about the people being unready to govern themselves. The vertical line of executive power was a point of pride for the rulers. A bizarre combination of diametrically opposed statements reflected the strategy of the ruling group, who apparently did not value democratic institutions and could not see their importance.

10. Opposition Questions on the Legitimacy
of Bashkortostan’s Government

Bashkortostan’s 1993 Constitution, and other laws regulating the formation and functioning of power organs in the republic, were not the result of a political compromise. The nature of the regime that had emerged before the Constitution’s passage ruled out any constructive dialogue between the ruling faction and the opposition. The creation of the rules of the game, and alteration of those rules, was entirely up to the ruling elite, particularly in the period between 1994–2000.

To this day, discussion continues about what kind of parliament the republic should have—whether it should contain one or two-chambers, how many deputies should be in each chamber and how it should be formed. These questions had been debated before the adoption of the Constitution. For example, in the early 1990s, the Congress of Democratic Forces opposition group proposed a professional legislature consisting of two equal chambers. And ethnic associations made other proposals: Some Bashkir leaders insisted on a 50 percent quota in parliament for Bashkirs,¹⁷  while Russian and Tatar associations, who make up 38 percent and 29 percent of the population respectively, wanted proportional representation of nationalities. But, because these ethnic movements and political parties had no direct access to the process of decision-making, they had no chance to lobby their proposals effectively. And besides, they were not offering any detailed models of the state structure or the representative branch.

To choose the optimal model of parliament, it is necessary to proceed from specific political realities and historical traditions of this or that country, but one condition is a must: If the legislative organ is to have legitimacy, the formula has to provide equal representation of various groups and interests. This has not happened in Bashkortostan, where the formation of the chambers of the State Assembly fails to comply with the principle of fair representation. This is the reason for the controversy among experts and political forces that raged at the time of passing the law on the State Assembly in 1994—and after the elections to the first and second State Assembly, in 1995 and 1999.

The system of representation set by the Supreme Soviet back in 1994 drew sharp criticism from pro-democracy factions. Shortly before the elections to the first State Assembly, in March 1995, a group of deputies of the Ufa City Council protested the distribution of seats in the upper chamber, which gives a disproportionately low number of deputies to districts in Ufa. The unrealistic apportionment of seats in the State Assembly, shown in Table 2, gives a disadvantage to pro-democratic forces, because the city districts were the only places where opposition candidates had a real chance of winning against a member of the ruling regime. The ruling faction could generally count on doing better in the rural constituencies.

Such poor representation of cities like Ufa—which contributes the lion’s share of the republic’s budget and is home to a quarter of the population—raises questions about the State Assembly’s legitimacy. But the amendments to the law on the State Assembly passed in 1998, shortly before the elections, only exacerbated the problem instead of solving it. Ufa, which was already under-represented under the old law, lost another three deputies in the lower chamber as a result of the new amendments.

The unfair distribution of seats in the State Assembly does not mean that rural areas are dominant. It is the executive power that benefits from this situation, because the ruling elite has a better chance of getting its candidates elected easily in rural districts, where it is much simpler to manipulate the voters. This practice was initiated during the republic’s first democratic elections, when members of the Communist Party nomenclature chose to run from rural districts.

Table 2. Proportion of Urban and Rural Deputies Compared
to the Population of their Constituencies (the State Assembly Elected in 1995)

Number of Voters Number of Seats in Upper Chamber

Population [%] Seats [%]

Ufa 737,096 28 14 9

Other cities 940,754 35 38 25
(incl. mixed
constituencies)

Rural 985,073 37 98 66
constituencies

Total 2,662,923 100 150 100

Source: Data of the RB Central Election Commission.

Opposition factions have also raised questions about the deviation of the legislature’s structure from the principle of division of powers that is declared in the Constitution. Some deputies of the lower chamber appealed to the republic’s Constitutional Court on the issue in autumn 1998. They said the lack of clear division of powers reflects on the legitimacy of decisions by the republic’s authorities. For example, during the election campaign for Russia’s State Duma, the republic’s State Assembly suspended transmission of the central ORT and RTR television channels for criticizing the political regime and policies of Bashkortostan’s administration. The opposition, including the public association Rus, the Party of Justice and Order and others, attacked that decision as illegitimate, saying that parliament is dominated by the executive power and, in fact, is not a representative institution.

Another point on which the representative system is criticized is its incompatibility with the federal law, which sets more democratic rules. The opposition has also accused the regime of destroying the legitimacy of elections. The Rus association, for instance, boycotted local elections in 1999, arguing that the presidential elections of summer 1998 were actually held on a no-alternative basis and in gross violation of Russia’s laws.

11. The Political Regime and the Prospects of Representation

The presidential election held in Bashkortostan in December 1993, the passing of its new Constitution and the elections to the State Assembly that followed in March 1995 gave the final shape to the authoritarian administrative political regime, which had acquired distinct, institutional outlines. The preservation of the status-quo in the period between the presidential and parliamentary elections helped consolidate the president’s power. The federal center, led by Russia’s president, who was seeking to strengthen the vertical line of executive power after his feud with the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation, in October 1993 refrained from the policy of de-Sovietization with respect to the constituent republics. This contributed to the republics’ stronger local powers. Another factor promoting the stabilization of Bashkortostan’s political regime was the successful completion in August 1994 of negotiations over delimiting powers with the federal center.¹⁸  Through these negotiations, the republic’s authorities obtained the economic resources for pursuing paternalistic policies, which gave them new mobilization powers.

By the time parliamentary elections were held in 1995, opposition forces and other political factions had no significant influence on the political process in the republic. In conditions of rising authoritarian tendencies, the republic’s parties and movements were pushed to the periphery of political life. They failed to find any new potential resources and could not give the existing regime any real competition. So the 1995 parliamentary elections did not bring noticeable changes in the correlation of the political forces.

The election process was affected by the norm prescribed in the law “On Elections to the Republic of Bashkortostan State Assembly,” which limited the nomination of candidates by political parties: Each party had a right to nominate just one candidate for the legislative chamber and no more than two for the upper House of Representatives.¹⁹  That gave little incentive to political parties and associations to stage an active election campaign and left them a minimal chance to influence the formation of representative power. Only a few parties even bothered to nominate candidates. Given the manipulation by the executive power, the election campaign was far from heated or exciting.

The uniformity of parliament’s composition reflects the strength of the ruling group’s political monopoly. The first and second State Assembly have been characterized by an absence of political factions and the domination of representatives of the administrative structures that are directly subordinated to the president.

Still, there are a few isolated deputies from the parties and opposition factions who, outnumbered as they are, have been trying to make their presence felt through individual initiatives. With the support of some former deputies of the Supreme Soviet, they have been able to establish certain opposition factions in the Assembly. But, given the existing regime and system of representation, and given the informational vacuum in which the deputies have to act, they find it extremely hard to put forth any alternative initiatives.

For example, in 1996, a group of Communist deputies in the lower chamber announced that they were setting up their faction in opposition to the republic’s government, which actively supported Boris Yeltsin in the Russian presidential elections held in summer that year. But, due to the pressure of the regime, and due to the absence of mechanisms in the parliamentary rules concerning the creation and activities of political factions, the Communists failed to gain formal status for their group. In practice they could never get their initiatives passed—even those that did not directly affect the interests of the republic’s executive powers.²⁰ 

In general, left-wing forces—and above all the Communist Party of the Republic of Bashkortostan, found the results achieved by their deputies’ activities in the first State Assembly unsatisfactory. They said their voice was not heard in parliament, even though they have a high percentage of supporters outside parliament—and quite a few sympathizers in the lower and upper chamber.

Once, on the initiative of a group of deputies in the legislative chamber, a so-called Party of Justice and Order was set up, led by R. Gataullin, head of the chamber’s committee on budget, taxation, finance and property. The party was opposed to the republic’s authorities and criticized the political regime and economic policies of the government. The group’s political position was expressed by the newspaper Vmeste (Together). Members of that association launched a number of initiatives, the most notable of them was the bill on setting up a Committee of Parliamentary Control, which was passed by the lower chamber, but blocked by the presidential administration. The party backed the alternative presidential candidate, M. Mirgazyamov, in the 1998 election. Its members voted against the law “On the Languages of the Republic of Bashkortostan,” and some of them even took part in public actions staged by political forces opposing that bill. But the party’s attempts to find a niche in the political system were frustrated by the consolidation of the president’s authoritarian regime, and none of its members got elected in the next parliament.

Considering the results of the presidential election of summer 1998, and parliamentary elections of 1999, we can say that the prospects for opposition in the republic’s political system became even worse. Just as before, ethnic movements were unable to get their candidates elected, and other groups also faired badly. None of the 27 candidates nominated by the republic’s chapter of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation succeed in the 1999 parliamentary elections.²¹ 

The concentration of administrative and economic resources in the hands of the president and his faction is so high that it allows complete domination in the republic. The political regime and the internal organizational structure of parliament determine the minimal role of the representative organ in the political system. In practice, the president’s faction can easily push amendments to the Constitution and the election law through the legislature, thus dictating the rules of the game. For example, they changed the date of the 1998 presidential election, and amended the code “On Elections” and the law “On the Republic of Bashkortostan State Assembly,” to benefit the incumbent president and further limit competition from the regime’s opponents.²² 

The strategy and the process of legislative work by the republic’s parliament is fully controlled by the president and the executive branch of power. By using mechanisms of formal and informal interference in that process, the president and the government play a clearly dominant role in the republic’s legislation. The president has even changed the structure of the government with no objections on the part of the State Assembly. The executive power also has absolute priority in setting and exercising budget policy.

The president’s authority has a markedly personal flavor: members of various elites demonstrate personal allegiance to Rakhimov as a rule. Loyalty to him is a must for those who want to maintain their niche in the established hierarchy. No publicly expressed poli-tical competition is tolerated. Just the mention of Rakhimov’s name, let alone his presence, produces a magical effect; formal procedures are nothing compared to his personal authority. No member of the republic’s elite can be an independent politician in this system.

Despite the insignificant role of parliament as a center of state power, and its subservience to the president, some deputies have made timid attempts to put pressure on the executive branch. Debates took place while legislation on some crucial issues was in progress. For example, deputies spoke out during the passing of the Code “On Elections,” during amendments to the law “On the Republic of Bashkortostan Law Courts” in 1997, during passage of the law “On the Languages of Bashkortostan” in 1999 and in some other debates. But the outcome was always predetermined: The executive power commands a majority both in the upper and lower chambers.

The lower chamber’s attempt to set up a Committee of Parliamentary Control, as envisaged by the republic’s Constitution, was unsuccessful. A bill on the measure was blocked by the upper chamber. Elsewhere in the country, such a body was found useful, and, in 1998, committees on parliamentary control had been created in 44 of Russia’s regions.²³  Another attempt at reforming Bashkortostan’s parliament, by appealing to the republic’s Constitutional Court to change the way the State Assembly is formed, was equally futile.

Given the informational vacuum in the republic, where there is no real independent mass media and freedom of speech is limited, parliamentary hearings or round-table conferences degenerated into perfunctory occasions, mere reminders of parliament’s existence. The post of human rights ombudsman was introduced just to legitimize the political regime. The office is only used for considering breaches in social and economic spheres, but it ignores violations of political rights.

The legislature has no control over drawing up the budget and has no access to information on budget expenditures. The president regulates budget affairs with his decrees, and grants tax concessions to some enterprises, thereby infringing on the competence of parliament. Misuse of budget funds by the executive power is standardpractice, and is achieved through the mechanism of “non-budget funds” outside of parliamentary control. An example of an abuse cited by Gataullin, chairman of the budget committee of the first State Assembly, was the case of a director of a defense plant using budget funds allocated for the development of science in the interests of his enterprise.²⁴ 

Many questions are not discussed or decided properly. This has particularly been the case in questions of ethnic groups’ self-determination and inter-ethnic relations. Thus, the law “On the Languages of the Republic Bashkortostan,” which was passed in February 1999 and proclaimed Russian and Bashkir as state languages, infringed on the rights of the Tatars, who make up one third of the population. Though the issue was raised back in the late 1980s, and though its important and sensitive nature called for a consensus, the law was passed without free discussion in the press or in general society. The bill caused protests from ethnic associations, including the Azatlyk union of Tatar youth and the Rus public association. Members of these, and other groups, picketed outside the State Assembly’s building, but the pickets were roughly dispersed by law-enforcement organs.²⁵ 

The election law and the Constitution require a presidential candidate to have a command of Russian and Bashkir, which amounts to ethnic discrimination. No ethnic associations are represented in parliament. The need to grant the Tatar population the right to an ethno-cultural autonomy has not been addressed. The republic’s Ministry of Justice has refused to register that autonomy.

Unlike in the early 1990s, there is currently neither wide discussion nor parliamentary debates about environmental problems, even though the president and government’s initiative to create the Yumaguzin artificial lake in southern Bashkortostan had a strong impact on the environment.

In the republic’s highly centralized state organization, parliament plays the role of a collective agent of the executive power, rather than being the place for voicing political and social interests. It cannot even give vent to public protests and resentment. Other quasi-representative organs and associations—including the Assembly of the Peoples of Bashkortostan, the Executive Committee of the World Kurultai of Bashkirs, the Council of Russians of Bashkortostan and the Executive Committee of the Tatar Congress—are manipulated by the official power and do not openly express ethnic or social interests.

The system, based on a rigid vertical line of executive power, actually leaves no room for local self-government. So far, legislation limits local self-government to the village and township level, which is contrary to the federal Constitution. At the level of cities, urban and rural districts, administration is exercised by the organs of local state government. The president appoints the mayors of the cities and the heads of district administrations, who also act as chairmen of city and district councils elected by the population. In practice, those representative organs are subordinate to the mayors and administration heads and play no significant role in governing the local community. Thus, the basic administrative level is part of a single centralized state corporation, much the way it was in the Soviet system. But even in the late Soviet period, the local organs had more autonomy both in their structure and their functions.

The situation in Bashkortostan only discredits the ideas and institutions of representative democracy. The absence of real and active representative bodies hampers the integration and development of civil society, and may even act as a disintegrating factor.

12. Conclusion

The development of the political system of Bashkortostan during the initial stage of regionalization has been determined by general trends in the Russian Federation. At first the federal center encouraged real reforms in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and these had a certain democratizing effect. But the short period of partial liberalization and the inconsistent, contradictory policies of the federal center did not permit democratic institutions to take root. Instead, the local Communist nomenclature regrouped, stayed in leadership roles and used the new level of autonomy from the federal center to conserve the traditional, Soviet rules of the game.

In an atmosphere of greater autonomy, the local elite did not produce representative institutions, but rather stepped up authoritarian trends. Given the poorly developed local opposition, the regime was able to dampen the democratic impulses sent by the center. Meanwhile, the federal government was far from consistent in carrying out democratic reforms, and sometimes served as a source of authoritarian tendencies. With no external or internal counterbalance, the republic’s elite echoed the federal center’s authoritarian tendencies in an exaggerated form.

The stability of the republic’s current authoritarian system is secured by the centralized structure of government. All political and economic resources are controlled by the president, and other institutions can only play a minimal role. It is quite fair to describe this political regime as neo-patrimonial.²⁶  Such a regime actually rules out effective mechanisms of self-organization, both at the state and local levels, therefore precluding any forms of regional or local self-government.

As long as the status-quo holds out, the regime remains stable. But there are certain signs of a potential crisis in the system. A regime that so thoroughly prevents citizens’ self-organization is not only unable to meet its internal challenges, but may itself become a destabilizing factor. And the consequences of that destabilization may be unpredictable. Even if external democratizing forces are kept out, the republic has internal sources of resentment that could be mobilized.

Given the relative openness of Russia’s political system, Bashkortostan’s regime cannot remain stable as it is. There are already conflicts between its ruling faction and the Russian Federation’s president or the legal institutions. There is also a conflict between the local powers and federal political associations, who dislike the reclusive nature of Bashkortostan’s regime. And opposition factions within the regime, who are stepping up demands for liberalization, should not be underestimated. Though the ethnic element in the ideology of those groupings is secondary, it may come to the fore if the federal center tries to more actively influence the situation in the republic.

But the transformation of the present regime very much depends on consistent policy from the federal center, and it will require at least preservation of democratic institutions. The first effective steps in that direction could be the development of the local self-government in the cities, the improvement of the judicial system and adequate distribution of information about processes in the republic.

Assessing the current situation in Russia, we can say that the vector of political development on the federal level is not clear, and neither are the prospects for democracy. The Kremlin’s strategy with respect to the regional powers is still unsettled. Some institutional measures being taken to weaken the influence of the regional leaders are not yet enough to show the Kremlin’s determination in following its proclaimed policies. It is possible that the federal center will ease its demands for democratization from the republic’s authorities, after gaining a certain degree of loyalty from them. Such an eventuality would perpetuate the positions of Bashkortostan’s ruling regime. But partial liberalization of its political system may contain some unpredictable elements for the federal government. The question is whether the federal power is prepared to pursue the set goals consistently. That question is still open.

¹ V. Vlasov. “Bashkortostan is an Economically Stable Region” (Bashkortostan—economicheski stabilny region) // Vatandash No. 8, 2000, p.3.

² The Conception and Program of Social and Economic Development of the Republic of Bashkortostan for 1997–2000 and Further until 2005 (draft). (Kontseptsia i programma socialno-economicheskogo razvitia Respubliki Bashkortostan na 1997–2000 gody i do 2005 g.). Ufa, 1997, p.44.

³ M. Dzh. Kiekbayev. “Bashkirs in the Cities of Bashkortostan: History and Modernity” (an attempt at historical-ethnographic and ethno-sociological research). (Bashkirs v gorodakh Bashkortostana: istoria i sovremennost). Ufa, 1998, pp.40–70.

⁴ R.Kh. Khabibullin was appointed first secretary in 1987, replacing M.Z. Shakirov in that post.

⁵ That tendency was noted by V.A. Tishkov throughout the post-Soviet space (V.A. Tishkov. Ocherki teorii i practiki ethnichnosti, M. 1997—Essays on the Theory and Practice of Ethnicity, M. 1997).

⁶ See in more detail: V.Ya. Guelman. “Regional Powers in Contemporary Russia: Institutions, Regimes, Practices” (Regionalnaya vlast v sovremennoi Rossii: instituti, regimi, practiki) // Police, 1998, No. 1, pp.87–105.

⁷ A.G. Yenikeyev. The Political Process and Representative Power in the Republic of Bashkortostan (1990–1998) (Politichesky process i predstavitelnaya vlast v Respublike Bashkortostan) // Materials of the second All-Russia Congress of Politologists “Russia. Political Challenges of the XXI century” (in print).

⁸ The Law of the BASSR of June 20, 1991 “On Amendments and Supplements to the Constitution of BASSR” (Zakon Bashkirskoi SSR ot 20 iyunya 1991 “Ob izmeneniyah I dopolneniyah Konstitutsii (Osnovnogo Zakona) Bashkirskoi Socialisticheskoi Respubliki”) // Ethnopoliticheskaya mozaika Bashkortostana, M. 1992, V.1, pp.169–173; A.G. Yenikeyev. The Emergence of Bashkortostan’s Parliamentary System as Integral Part of Russia’s Parliamentarism. (Stanovleniye parlamentskoi sistemi Bashkortostana kak sostavnoi chasti rossiyskogo parlamentarisma). Master’s thesis, Ufa, 1999, pp.88–89.

⁹ The first founding Congress of Democratic Forces (CDF) of Bashkortostan was held Sept. 7, 1991 with the participation of 26 parties, clubs, associations and organizations. R. Bignov was elected Chairman of the CDF.

¹⁰ See for more details: I. Rabinovich, S. Fufayev. “The Master (Touches to the Political Portrait of Murtaza Rakhimov)” (Khozyain. Shtrikhi k politicheskomu portretu Murtazy Rakhimova) // Pro et Contra, Vol. 2, No. 2. M. 1997, pp.71–78.

¹¹ The Declaration on the State Sovereignty of the BSSR was pased Oct. 11, 1990 by the third extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR.

¹² Short-hand report of the VSSR Supreme Soviet’s fifth session, Ufa 1991, pp.53–317.

¹³ The Constitution of the Republic of Bashkortostan was passed Dec. 24, 1993.

¹⁴ M.N. Afanasiev. “From Free Hordes to the Khan’s Camp” (Ot volnykh ord do khanskoi stavki)// Pro et Contra, Vol. 3, No. 3, M. 1998, pp.5–20.

¹⁵ For more details see: I.M. Gabdrafikov, A.G. Anikeyev. “The Constitutional Reform and the Political Process in Bashkiria” (Constitutionnaya reforma i politicheskiy process v Bashkirii), autumn 2000 // Bulletin of the Network for Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts, No. 34, November–December 2000.

¹⁶ “The Situation Requires a More Active Parliament” (Obstanovka trebuyet povysheniya activ-nosti parlamenta)—M.G. Rakhimov’s address to the session of the Legislative Chamber, September 10, 1998 // Izvestia Bashkortostana, No. 174, Sept. 11, 1998.

¹⁷ See, e.g., D.Zh. Valeyev. The National Sovereignty and National Revival (Nationalniy suverenitet i nationalnoye vozrozhdeniye). Ufa. 1993, p.128.

¹⁸ The Treaty on Delimiting the Powers between them was signed Aug. 3, 1994.

¹⁹ Later that norm was repealed by the State Assembly.

²⁰ For details see: A.G. Anikeyev. The Emergence of the Parliamentary System of Bashkortostan as an Integral Part of Russia’s Parliamentarism (Stanovleniye parlamentskoi systemy Bashkortostana kak sostavnoi chasti rossiyskogo parlamentarisma). Doctor’s thesis, Ufa, 1999, p.124.

²¹ For details see: I.M.Gabdrafikov. “Election Called to the RB State Assembly” (Naznacheny vybori...) // Bulletin of the Network for Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts, No. 23, January–February 1999, pp.15–17; A.G. Yenikeyev. “Balance of Forces before Elections to RB State Assembly” (Rasstanovka sil pered vyborami...) // Ibid, pp.17–20; I.M. Gabdrafikov, A.G. Yenikeyev. “Results of Elections to RB State Assembly” (Itogi viborov...) // Bulletin of the Network for Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts, No. 24, March–April 1999, pp.32–36.

²² For details see: I.M.Gabdrafikov. “The Start of the Election Campaign” (Dan start predvybornoi...) // Bulletin of the Network for Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts, No. 18, April 1998, pp.10–13; A.G. Yenikeyev. “Balance of Forces before Elections to RB State Assembly” (Rasstanovka sil pered vyborami...) // Bulletin of the Network for Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts, No. 23, January–February 1999, pp.17–20.

²³ M.N. Afanasyev. Above-quoted work, pp.5–20.

²⁴ “Problems are Inevitable” (Problemy neizbezhny)—interview of R.F. Gataullin, chairman of the parliamentary committee on the budget, taxes, banks, finance and property, with a correspondent of the newspaper Nash Bybor, No. 4, Jan. 22, 1999.

²⁵ For details see: I.M. Gabdrafikov. “Law passed ‘On the Languages of the Republic Bashkortostan’” (Prinyat zakon “O yazikakh...”) // Bulletin of the Network for Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts, No. 23, January–February 1999, pp.20–22.

²⁶ Russia’s Regions: the Transformation of Political Regimes (Rossia regionov: transformatia politicheskikh regimov). M. 2000, p.142