Moscow – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday fired Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, putting a dramatic end to a long-simmering conflict with one of the Kremlin’s most powerful political opponents.
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In a decree signed Tuesday in China where he is on an official visit, Mr. Medvedev removed Mr. Luzhkov “because he had lost the confidence of the president,” the Kremlin said. Kremlin officials said they had hoped Mr. Luzhkov would agree to resign and allowed him a week’s vacation to think over his plans. But Mr. Luzhkov, a pugnacious veteran of years of political battling, remained defiant on his return Monday, saying he wouldn’t resign. He had no immediate comment Tuesday.
Though a top member of the ruling party, Mr. Luzhkov, 74 years old, was one of the few independent forces on the Kremlin-dominated Russian political stage. In office for 18 years, his departure had been widely expected after his conflict with the Kremlin burst into the open last month.
In a series of articles and public statements, Mr. Luzhkov and his wife, a billionaire construction magnate, had seemed to question Mr. Medvedev’s leadership, suggesting that Russia needed a stronger ruler—widely seen as a reference to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Mr. Medvedev’s patron and predecessor. The Kremlin responded with a series of rare public attacks on Mr. Luzhkov and his wife on state television.
The Kremlin appointed one of his deputies, Vladimir Resin, as acting mayor. Analysts and diplomats expect a permanent replacement to come from the ranks of those close to Messrs. Putin and Medvedev. Sergei Sobyanin, a top Putin deputy, is seen as a leading candidate.
Appointed in 1992 by President Boris Yeltsin, Mr. Luzhkov was elected to his post three times and reappointed in 2007 by then-president Putin, who had eliminated elections for regional chiefs and made them Kremlin appointees.
Mr. Luzhkov enjoyed strong support from many Muscovites, grateful for the rich pensions and other benefits the city paid. But he was also criticized for cracking down on political opponents, repeatedly deploying police to break up opposition demonstrations, and for allegations of rigging elections.
He and his wife, who became Russia’s wealthiest woman while he was mayor, were dogged by allegations of corruption, though they consistently denied them and none were ever proven. Under his rule, Moscow was transformed from a grey Soviet capital into a neon-trimmed modern metropolis, choked with construction and traffic.
What this shows is, that not much has changed in Russia. It’s the Putin-Medvedev, Medvedev-Putin show. Except for a brief period under Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, Russia has reverted to its natural state of governing. By dictatorship. And in foreign policy, too. They follow the old line of the Soviet rulers. They (the Russians) have enabled Iran to become a nuclear power by selling and building their nuclear reactors. And they’re active in other trouble spots in the world, too.