Mintimer Shaimiev: «There can't be any compromises on key priorities and goals of the party»

On April 2, President of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev gave an interview to Interfax agency

Mintimer Sharipovitch, you are a co-chairman of the United Russia party, what is your estimation of the results of the elections held in 14 Russian provinces in March?

Comparing the results of the United Russia in these elections with the previous ones, I can state that, in the main, we have maintained and somewhat consolidated our position, we managed to keep our domination in political life. But still we shouldn't relax. We mustn't step on the same rake twice. I mean the period after the elections to the current State Duma. United Russia members, having a constitutional majority, nearly lost their own principles then. During the first year of work within the new Duma staff, our faction automatically, in a 'yes, sir' manner, passed nearly all bills proposed by the Government.

It is good that we managed to stop then until it was too late and to give a critical estimation of ourselves, and after that our deputies started to consider government bills more carefully before making decisions whether to pass them or not.

Another, not less significant, point is that the United Russia must compete with all the rest of the parties on the basis of its principles. There can't be any compromises on key priorities and goals of the party. We mustn't have a compromising policy to the prejudice of the party's authority and unfortunately, there are some tendencies to it.

Our party must save its own principles and platform, successively and daily stand for its own interests and for the interests of its voters in legislative bodies where we got a majority, especially at decisive moments after elections when the legislative bodies are being formed. No compromises are acceptable in this case, as it doesn't concern the formation of any coalition, which is possible, as a rule, only at the formation of a government.

At the recent elections, the main opponent of the United Russia was the Fair Russia led by the Speaker of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov who declared that his party would become the first after December elections. Is it realistic that the elections can turn out so?

The desire to be the first is a very good one. There are hardly any politicians that don't want to be the first in politics, but only a few manage to achieve it and here it is always necessary to correlate your desires with real possibilities. It is, to say the least, hasty to speak of your doubtless first place in the coming parliamentary elections beforehand.

The Fair Russia must keep working seriously on strengthening its position, especially after its loud declarations about a drastic improvement of people's life. If these noble slogans aren't implemented, time will start to work against the party. Most Russian people are quite educated and when they are promised a better life, they first start to believe and hope, but disappointment comes much quicker now, as contrasted to former times. So unrealistic promises can simply erode the party.

As a matter of fact, the Fair Russia must be grateful to the supporters of the former Party of Pensioners, because it gained votes thanks to them. They must admit that the least disappointment among this part of the electorate can cost a lot to the party. Especially taking into consideration the fact that most pensioners adhere to the former ideology which, whatever the Fair Russia leaders could say, they can't replace due to the fact that the party lacks in fundamental ideology.

On the other hand, the elections showed that the hope of the Fair Russia to take votes off the Communists were not justified. Passion for left-wing discourse and populism only strengthened the electoral position of the Communist Party as a left-wing party. In my opinion, Sergei Mironov's party doesn't have their own field to cultivate, where a good yield could be gathered, this is why they tramp on the other parties' fields.

At these elections, the party that partially consists of the former Party of Pensioners, Rodina (Motherland) and Russian Party of Life had a five per cent decrease in its share of votes, as compared to the number of votes these parties had gained together in October last year. Such outcome should lead to serious analysis and consequent conclusions, if the party really aspires to become strong. Now there are more questions than answers in this respect.

Mintimer Sharipovitch, do you think that the head of state should represent a certain party or give preference to some party only verbally, staying a non-party man?

Now we are carrying out a policy of building a real multi-party system where several leading parties will compete with each other in the political arena of the country, and an indispensable condition of such system is that the president is at the same time the leader of the party. All the more, all elections, starting from elections to local authorities and legislative bodies of Russian provinces, are held according to the party principle now. When a politically active part of the population start to show their preferences to the programme of this or that party, as it happens in the conditions of a real multi-party system, then these preferences will influence the results of the presidential elections on the whole. Therefore, in this situation, the president must be a party member, it is just inevitable.

From my perspective, it is possible that a non-party man will be elected the president of Russia in 2008, but perhaps it will be the last time in Russian political life.

There have been a lot of discussions and all sorts of rumours about the treaty on demarcation of powers and areas of responsibility between the Federal authorities and the Republic of Tatarstan passed by the State Duma and rejected by the Federation Council under the pretext that it doesn't correspond to the existing legislation. What kind of future will the treaty have?

The treaty is absolutely perfect from the legal point of view, it was approved by the State Council of the Republic, signed by the President of the Russian Federation and it was the head of state that introduced it to the Parliament. But the moment of consideration of the treaty happened to coincide with the peak of pre-election struggle. It was just before the elections to the Legislative Assemblies in 14 Russian provinces, at the height of political confrontation between the leaders of the two rival parties – the Speaker of the State Duma Boris Gryzlov, the leader of the United Russia, and the Speaker of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov, the leader of the Fair Russia. It is absolutely evident to us, Tatarstan authorities, that the voting in the upper chamber was politicized.

Today the treaty is in the process of being adopted.

Lately, publications about your allegedly decided resignation have been regularly appearing in mass media and some even included a list of candidates that can take over from you...

It is hard for me to say where it came from. I wasn't in the republic at that time: firstly I was on holiday, enjoyed swimming, and then visited Germany where the Republic of Tatarstan was presented at the International Fair in Leipzig. As for the publications, someone seems to throw a bone and as it always happens in such cases some living creatures start to bite this bone. I personally consider it to be no more than a fuss that appears from time to time.

People with weak nerves don't come to power. If someone wants to get to know about something firsthand, my address is the same: 'Kazan, Kremlin'.

The other day you conveyed an annual message to the parliament of the republic. What is the significance of this event?

We managed to timely sum up the results of the year 2006 and set the priorities of all-round development of Tatarstan in the year 2007. Literally, the message is a guide to action for all organizations, both governmental and non-governmental.

I am pleased that the social and economic strategy of the development of the republic which was worked out some years ago has proved to be right. First of all, it implies carrying out people-oriented reforms and building efficient competitive industry to gradually raise revenue from taxes, which will allow us to solve urgent social problems.

We have had a considerable increase in standard of living, though 9 per cent of the population of the republic falls into the category of people whose income is lower than the cost of living. However, 9 per cent is a much lower index than the average index in the country. We intend to reduce it to the minimum in the two coming years. Our principle is that in Tatarstan there mustn't be any people with an income lower than the cost of living. It is a quite practicable goal and we will consider its realization to be the first weighty achievement.

Besides, we have set a goal to secure through structural reorganizations an increase in budget wages up to 80 per cent of the average wage by the year 2008. Now this proportion is about 70 per cent.

While settling the problems of increase in wages, it is utterly important for us to provide necessary conditions for adequate and forward growth of labour productivity. It is an indispensable condition for rise in competitiveness and settling the topical problem of lack of specialists.

In connection with the fact that the Russian Federation is preparing to join the World Trade Organization, in my annual message I specified the priorities in the sphere of economic policy. The largest intensification of competition is expected in agriculture, financial, investment and insurance spheres, services market and the republic must be prepared to it right now. The system of public administration must also be adjusted to new conditions in a proper way.

I would like to dwell on a highly important sphere for economics – oil production. On the territory of the republic there are old oilfields and the three billionth ton of oil will be produced on the Romashkinskoye oilfield this year. At present, easy ways of oil production have already been exhausted, nevertheless we produce thirty million tons of oil yearly. And experts forecast that this index will remain in the coming thirty years.

In the conditions when oil production is not increasing it is notable that the pace of industrial development in Tatarstan was above average Russian indices in 2006. It proves that our programme 'Tatarstan without rise in oil production' adopted some years ago starts to yield results.

Industrial production is growing mainly through developing petrochemical industry as well as through application of new techniques for deep oil processing.

Large importance is also attached to the development of engineering industry. In the years before “perestroika” the proportion of engineering industry to the overall industrial production in the republic was 42 per cent, but due to the decrease in the number of defense orders, the proportion of engineering industry products dropped to 20 per cent. Certainly, it is a more capital intensive industry and it requires large investments to bring it up to date.

However, we must return the lost position in the sphere of engineering industry, first of all, thanks to the activity of KAMAZ Joint Stock Company which growth was over 34 percentage points last year (this year the tendency is expected to remain), investments to the fixed capital and cooperation with world companies on production of trucks. Alabuga free economic zone created by the decree of the government of the Russian Federation will be of good help in reaching this goal, it already draws large foreign investors. For example, Severstal-avto company has already started to produce South Korean and Italian makes of cars that are in good demand among Russian consumers. It is planned to produce up to 190 thousand cars of these kinds by 2010.

We have worked out a programme on organization of manufacture of car components for cars produced in the republic, where we have also taken into account those assembly plants that are only being built on the territory of the Russian Federation. We are currently building Chimgrad technopolis that will carry out necessary specialized scientific research in the sphere of high technology and contribute to the realization of innovation projects on production of new plastics and rubber for nearly all types of cars. Taking into consideration that 25-27 percent of a car price fall to the share of plastics, it promises us good perspectives.

In general, Tatarstan authorities try to devote a lot of attention to the development of infrastructure of innovation activity and construction of technoparks; some of them are successfully working by now. This direction is very perspective.

To save the tendency of dynamic development in the future, the annual message also contains objectives for development of new perspective spheres – science, information technologies, engineering, industrial design, tourism and logistics.

Projects relating to biofuel are being actively discussed in the world and Russia today, as the problem of saving of oil products and observance of ecological requirements is very topical due to the rapid increase in the number of cars. We started to consider the problem of biofuel production four years ago. This year we are to open the first and the largest rape-processing plant with productive capacity of 300 thousand tons and we are planning to create one more large production of bioethanol.

To attract the best experts and young people from other countries and regions into new perspective spheres, we intend to use the tools of social mortgage that have already proved to be useful.

Special attention is also devoted to support of small-scale and medium-scale business. In 2007, we are planning to launch the system of state-private partnership – effective long-term mutually profitable cooperation of the republic authorities, local administrations and private business.

I would like to note the effectiveness of the realization of national projects. All their planned parameters have been achieved. The national projects gave a huge impulse to the development of the agroindustrial complex – large-scale construction of cattle-breeding farms has been expanding in the republic and at the same time a great number of pedigree cattle is being purchased. According to our calculations, we will manage to secure increase in both milk production and meat production, and these indices will be twice as high as planned in the national project.

The talented students and best teachers support programme which is unexampled in the Russian Federation started in the Republic of Tatarstan in 2006. They were sent to the most prestigious higher education institutions and scientific centres in the Russian Federation, the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland. Now they are returning and bringing to the republic not only the most up-to-date knowledge, but, most importantly, wide business connections. Taking into account the urgent need for introduction of advanced methods and forms of education, we are planning to start work on establishing branches of leading foreign universities jointly with higher education institutions of the Republic of Tatarstan, first of all, in the sphere of technology.

In the message, a number of new objectives were also set in the sphere of government and municipal administration: to raise responsibility of the authorities and people's trust to it, to struggle against corruption, to provide transparency of governmental decisions, to reduce expenses on the management personnel and to introduce systems of competitive selection of specialists.