The most powerful man in the most powerful city is sacked by the Russian young blood president, to popular acclaim, and in spite of the prime minister’s likely disapproval. Nick Paton Walsh blogs.
For Russia, it’s seismic. The most powerful man in the most powerful city is sacked by the young blood president, to popular acclaim, and in spite of the prime minister’s likely disapproval.
Yuri Luzhkov has been the mayor of Moscow since anyone can remember. He was like the city’s interminable traffic: part of life and, to his denial, blamed for the endemic corruption of city officials and questioned as to whether he really had nothing to do with his wife Yelena Baturina becoming the richest woman in Russia.
They also blamed him for the traffic, which he didn’t fix. And they hated the flat cap he wore, always.
Today, Dmitri Medvedev fired him. It was a long time coming for angry Muscovites, and Luzhkov himself has recently gone to Vienna, amid rumours of possible prosecution, fuelled by ubiquitous negative coverage on state TV.
Medvedev’s always been seen in the shadow of ex-president and current prime minister, Vladimir Putin, thought to support Luzhkov. But today he moved quite independently and decisively. It could be a bid to shore up popular support. It could be a way of showing steel ahead of Putin’s likely bid for the presidency again in 2012.
Either way, an era is over in Moscow. And we’ll maybe never have to see that flat cap again.