The Chechen parliament unanimously confirmed Odes Baysultanov, a cousin of the president Ramzan Kadyrov, as premier minister of the Chechen Republic. Baysultanov, 41 was deputy prime minister and then his candidacy was proposed by Ramzan Kadyrov for the post of premier.
As presenting Odes Baysultanov to the parliament Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov, the head of the lower house of the Chechen Parliament said that “Odes has played a magnificent role in reconstruction of the airport in Grozny, and for Chechnya it is a gateway to Europe”. But analytics say, it has been hardly the decisive argument.
On being approved on the post Baysultanov has received a lot of presents from the members of the parliament. In his inaugural address he said that it’s a great honor and he would do his utmost to justify Kadyrov’s confidence. “I have to do my best to be worthy of my predecessor (Ramzan Kadyrov was premier since 2004) ” - said Baysultanov according to the official website of the Chechen Government.
Baysultanov is a son of an Kadyrov’s uncle on his mother’s side. He was also grown in Gudermess, graduated from the ChSU, being a Doctor of Economics, he has several rewards from the Chechen government. In recent years he was the Head of the Department of Affairs of the President of Chechen Republic, a vice-premier and then the first vice-premier. On his last post he was responsible for economics strategy.
Appointing close relatives on official posts, putting “own folk” on leading important positions is a normal practice for Chechnya. Being much younger Kadyrov however has complete authority over Baysultanov and he can be to be fully confident in Odes’ loyalty. The new premier minister attempts to behave like a strict, hard-edged politician in spite of his quite, well-bred disposition.
Baysultanov has announced that no personnel changes would take place in the leadership of the Republic, formed by Kadyrov a month ago. All top-ranking officials are Kadyrov’s close and trusted men. They are former separatists and loyal to Kremlin.
Ramzan Kadyrov, 30 was approved as Chechen president on March 2 and was inaugurated on April 5 in Gudermes.
Kadyrov provides hard politics, which has many opponents and caused multiple accusations from different remedial organizations and movements.
Russian Human rights defenders from the Moscow Helsinki Group, the Moscow Civic Assistance Committee, etc. have announced that Chechnya “remains a state, where multiple cases of human rights violations, out of court executions and tortures, kidnapping are wide spread” and even boycotted Kadyrov. They refused to take part in conference on human rights, which was organized by Chechen government and took place in Chechnya in the last February. Most international human rights organizations support this assessment of the situation in the Republic.
But there are also advocates of Kadyrov’s political strategy. They compare it with unstable, vague politics in Ukraine and propagate comic rhymes, e.g. If you want avoid Maydan - call Ramzan!
Notable, that among multiple rewards and orders Ramzan Kadyrov has several for human right defense, e.g., “Honored human rights defender”, recently he received a similar reward from some “International Human Rights Defense Committee”. According to analytics, it is to be a part of a campaign designed for the Chechen president’s image improvement.
