The publication believes this is going to be a very significant visit because "Smirnov has ceased to be respected by the Russian establishment by now", and provided several reasons in favor of this.
For instance, Kommersant said that Smirnov used Russia's 2006 humanitarian assistance not according to its assigned destination, namely a part of the money was used for maintaining the region's bureaucratic and power structures. Also, Moscow keeps on asking where a billion U.S. dollars have gone - the money the Transnistrian government had systematically collected from the populace for Russian natural gas but had not paid anything to Russia.
But the chief strategic blunder made by the family of the unsinkable Transnistrian leader [since 1991] has been that "the president's daughter-in-law and the leader of the Transnistrian Patriotic Party Mrs. Marina Smirnova [who is also the president of the region's GasPromBank that handled the missing gas proceeds] called upon the Transnistrians having the Russian citizenship to vote for the Fair Russia Party last December 2, and even ran for the Russian State Duma in the Yamal-Nenets autonomous region as a candidate of that party".
As a result, "Moscow has itself found another favorite in the unrecognized republic - the ambitious speaker of the Transnistrian parliament, Yevgeny Shevchuk", the paper wrote.
"The leader of the local Obnovleniye [Renovation] Republican Party of Transnistria defending the Transnistrian businesses' interests, he feels the conjuncture situation very well. In 2007, he personally signed in Moscow an agreement on his party's cooperation with the United Russia party, and ensured to his new Moscow allies 83.58% of the Transnistrian voters, while the Fair Russia Party received only 4.96%.
For his special merits, Yevgeny Shevchuk was invited to attend a congress of the United Russia Party at which Dmitry Medvedev was nominated as a presidential candidate. As soon as that happened, a public movement in support of Medvedev emerged in the Transnistrian region on the initiative of Shevchuk, who called upon compatriots and all political forces in the region to back Medvedev at the March 2 presidential election in Russia", Kommersant wrote.
According to it, besides his external political activity, Yevgeny Shevchuk is persistently working to develop the Transnistrian supreme soviet into a force alternative to president Smirnov. Last several months, the supreme soviet demonstrated repeatedly its independence by overcoming Smirnov's vetoes on various laws, including on the 2008 budget law and law on the public television.
Kommersant presumes Yevgeny Shevchuk is an extra string to the Kremlin's bow if only Moscow fails to find a common language with Smirnov. Should this really happen, Igor Smirnov may well repeat the fate of Askar Akayev, ex-President of Kirgizia, the paper said.
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