Russian president ends regional strongman's rule

Medvedev put forward the candidacy of former deputy transport minister Alexander Misharin as governor of the Sverdlovsk Region.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday ended the 14-year rule of Urals region supremo Eduard Rossel, the highest profile casualty of the Kremlin's shake-up of regions amid the economic crisis.

Medvedev put forward the candidacy of former deputy transport minister Alexander Misharin as governor of the Sverdlovsk Region, the Kremlin said in a statement on its website.

The current term of Rossel, 72, who ruled Sverdlovsk Region since his election in 1995 under the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, is due to run out on November 21, but he had been seeking another mandate.

The change is the latest reshuffle of Russia's powerful regional bosses amid the economic crisis after Medvedev in a shock move sacked three regional governors in February.

But the charismatic Rossel, a one-time Yeltsin ally who then fell out spectacularly with the president in the 1990s over his demands for greater regional autonomy, is by far the highest-profile governor to go.

Misharin's candidacy now needs only to be approved by the local parliament, which should be a formality given that it is dominated by the ruling United Russia party.

The Russian authorities have been warily watching for signs of social unrest in regions such as Sverdlovsk with a large concentration of export-dependent heavy industry which have been hit hard by the economic crisis.

Leading political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin told the Interfax news agency that Rossel was the "first of the real heavyweights" among the regional leaders to lose their job in the crisis.

- It's clear that the (central) authorities have prepared the mechanism for replacing the heavyweights - adding that the Kremlin was aware of the importance of the regional elite ahead of presidential elections in 2012.

- I think this is only beginning and in the next two years the veteran regional leaders will be replaced.-

Before 2004, the governors of Russia's regions and autonomous regions were elected by popular vote.

But Vladimir Putin, during his rule as president, changed the system to Kremlin nomination followed by approval by regional parliament.

The move was fiercely criticised by liberals at the time, who accused the Kremlin of seeking to centralise power in Moscow as happened during the Soviet era.

Under an adaptation to the rules ordered by Medvedev, the ruling regional party -- in this case United Russia -- now proposes three candidates to the president for governor positions.

On this occasion, the first time the amendment has been put into practice, the candidates were Misharin, Rossel and the head of the local Sverdlovsk government Viktor Koksharov.

The head of United Russia in the Urals, Igor Barinov, said that Misharin would bring "a fresh look, new approaches" to the region.

- He's a strong manager and I think that the region will receive a push forwards in development of the economy and the social sphere - he added.

According to the daily Vedomosti, the regional parliament will hold its vote on the new governor by the end of the week.

Yekaterinburg, the city where Yeltsin was local Communist party boss in the 1970s, was known under Communism as Sverdlovsk and is notorious as the site of the execution of the imperial Romanov royal family by the Bolsheviks.

Rossel was head of the region also from 1991-1993 but he was sacked by Yeltsin for advocating an autonomous Urals republic with looser ties to Moscow, before winning back power in 1995 elections.

Other regional supremos of comparable weight who remain in their posts include the long-serving head of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiyev, governor of the Kemerovo region Aman Tuleyev and the mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov.