MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has nominated Vyacheslav Shtyrov, the incumbent president of Yakutia in East Siberia, for another five-year term, the Kremlin press service said Tuesday.
Shtyrov, 43, was elected president of the diamond-rich Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, whose capital Yakutsk is 5,300 miles from Moscow, in January 2002.
From 1995 to 2002 Shtyrov was president of Yakutia-based state-controlled Alrosa, one of the world's largest diamond mining companies, accounting for 25% of global diamond production.
Shtyrov's candidacy must be approved by Il Tumen, Yakutia's bicameral parliament, in line with a Putin-proposed 2004 law that abolished elections of regional presidents and governors, and gave the president the right to nominate candidates.
Rights groups in Russia and abroad have criticized the law as an erosion of democracy.
