TATARSTAN….

Mintimer Shaimiev, the last communist chief in the Tatarstan Soviet Socialist Republic, on Sunday won 81 percent of the vote in his quest for a third five-year term as president of the Republic of Tatarstan. There were four also-rans, none getting more than 5 percent. Shaimiev was the first regional leader to sign a power-sharing agreement with the federal government, then led by President Boris Yeltsin, and the agreement became a model for other ethnic republics. Lately, however, devolutionist Shaimiev and Tatarstan have felt Vladimir Putin’s strong centralizing hand. Tax revenues raised in Tatarstan used to stay there. Now most of them go to Moscow, and Shaimiev must outwit, out-wheedle or out-grovel his colleagues to get them back. Shaimiev, who aspired to a national role as a leader of the Fatherland-All Russia coalition that backed former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov’s brief presidential campaign, now seems likely to end his career in Kazan.