On April 10, Tkachev, whose current term expires in March 2009, a year after the presidential elections, asked the president for a vote of confidence. In a maneuver designed to secure a presidential endorsement for a second term, another governor, Valentina Matviyenko of St. Petersburg, near the end of her first term last December submitted her resignation to President Vladimir Putin and also asked for a vote of confidence.
"Fifty-nine MPs voted for Tkachev's candidacy, with a single vote against," a spokesman for the local legislature said.
Tkachev, who has headed the regional administration since 2000, when he won gubernatorial elections by a landslide, is widely known as the man behind the failed seizure of the island of Tuzla in the Kerch Strait (the governor had a dam constructed from the Russian shore to the disputed Ukrainian island), and for his strong stand against illegal immigration in Russia, with some commentators interpreting his remarks as racist.
