Remember back several months ago when Putin declared that regional governors would be appointed rather than elected. It didn’t really matter in the first place, because those elected were already vetted for approval by Moscow. The reason Putin gave is that he would be able to install more popular and competent leaders should they be needed. But elections hold both a practical and symbolic importance, especially when the corrupt and incompetent leadership is not being replaced.

Russia????????s abolition of regional elections ????????- a reflex reaction to the Beslan tragedy ????????- has backfired. Instead of bringing order to the North Caucasus, it may swell the ranks of those fighting the Kremlin.

Officials said the reform would allow them to remove corrupt regional leaders, strengthening the state enough to finally crush the Chechen rebels behind last September????????s Beslan hostage-taking, in which 330 people died.

But six months after the law????????s adoption, the same elites have had their mandates confirmed in two of the most volatile provinces: North Ossetia, which includes Beslan, and Ingushetia.

???????From the start, we said that our local president was to blame (for Beslan), and now his right-hand man has been put in power,??????? said Susanna Dudiyeva, chairwoman of the ????????Beslan Mothers???????? support group.

???????Are these the morals of the Kremlin? These useless presidents should be held to account, not rewarded … Moscow is doing nothing. We are living through a war but it is their war and they should know how to end it,??????? said Dudiyeva, who lost her son in the school siege.

Even President Vladimir Putin????????s top man in southern Russia, which includes the North Caucasus, has warned that the abolition of elections was losing Moscow support and boosting corruption.

???????The arbitrary nature of the authorities has created social apathy … In many regions, authorities do not have any public support,??????? Dmitry Kozak wrote in a memo to Putin and which was leaked to a Moscow daily.

Officials in the Caucasus, like Ingush President Murat Zyazikov, insist the situation is improving.

Observers say it is not.

???????Ordinary people are starting to think they are not important. Whoever is representing the Kremlin is not doing his job,??????? Vladimir Semyonov, ex-president of the increasingly unstable region of Karachayevo-Cherkessiya, told Reuters.

???????If the Kremlin … follows the opinion of one clan rather than popular opinion, then the whole federal army won????????t be enough to control the Caucasus,??????? said Semyonov, who commanded the Russian ground forces in Chechnya between 1994 and 1996.

The Caucasus is home to a war centred on Chechnya, where 100,000 Russian soldiers have fought for 10 years but failed to stop the separatists. The war is infecting other Caucasus regions like Dagestan and Karachayevo-Cherkessiya.

The last point about Chechnya and the rest of the North Caucasus is very significant. Popular protests have been spreading from Bashkortostan to Ingushetia. Right now, the discontent seems to be mostly at the regional leadership, but federal Russian interference and inaction has put Moscow in the crosshairs. This could mean that, eventually, separatism will become the path of the regional republics, just as Chechnya has done. In fact, news reports show that captured rebels in Chechnya are sometimes from neighboring provinces like Ingushetia. Russia as an influential, whole country is not in a good place right now.