New president of Russia's Bashkortostan dissolves government

Rustem Khamitov, 55, who was voted into office by parliament earlier in the day, said a new government would be formed within two weeks.

Khamitov, an ex-top manager at Russia's largest hydro energy company, RusHydro, replaces Murtasza Rakhimov, who had headed the country since 1993 and has taken early retirement.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accepted Rakhmiov's resignation on July 15 and put forward Khamitov to replace him. The 76-year-old Rakhimov was first elected president of Bashkortostan in December 1993 and was one of very few regional leaders to have remained in power since the 1990s.

After Medvedev accepted Rakhimov's resignation, Khamitov was appointed interim president. He is part of a longstanding preference for technocrats rather than politicians as regional leaders, which began when the power to nominate them was given to the Kremlin during the presidency of Vladimir Putin.

Khamitov also previously served as a deputy of the supreme council of Bashkortostan and headed the republic's Emergency Situations Ministry; Kazinform cites RIA Novosti. See www.en.rian.ru