Aman Tuleyev

Amangeldy Gumirovich "Aman" Tuleyev (, , ; 13 May 1944 – 20 November 2023) was a Russian statesman. He served as governor of Kemerovo Oblast from 1997 to 2018 and was the chairman of the Council of People's Deputies of the Kemerovo Oblast briefly in 2018.

Tuleyev ran for President of Russia in 1991, 1996 (withdrawing during the campaign) and 2000, coming fourth in both 1991 and 2000.

Career in the Soviet Union Tuleyev was born to a Kazakh father and a half-Tatar half-Bashkir mother in Krasnovodsk, Turkmen SSR, USSR.

Early at his career, Tuleyev worked as a railway engineer. In 1964, he graduated from Tikhoretsky Railway Technical College with distinction. He then moved to Siberia, to be a railway clerk at the small railway settlement of Mundybash in the Kemerovo area, where he became a stationmaster in 1969. In 1973, he graduated from the Novosibirsk Institute of Engineers as a railway engineer specialized in communication. From 1973 to 1978 he was railway station chief in the town of Mezhdurechensk. From 1978 to 1985 he worked at Novokuznetsk Railway Station, first as an assistant, and then as the chief of the Novokuznetsk branch of the Kemerovo Railway. In 1985, Tuleyev was appointed head of the Department of Transport and Communication in Kemerovo and in 1989 he became head of the Kemerovo Railway System.

In 1990, he switched to politics and was elected to the Parliament of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) from Kuzbas. In March 1990, Tuleyev was elected chairman of the Kemerovo Regional Soviet.

1991 Russian presidential campaign Tuleyev was a presidential candidate in the 1991 Russian presidential election. His running mate was Viktor Bocharov. At the time of his 1991 campaign, Tuleyev was regarded as a somewhat popular reformist. He was perceived at the time to be a left-wing populist.

Tuleyev aimed to siphon voters away from Boris Yeltsin in Eastern Russia. He particularly hoped to garner votes from miners, a demographic which had developed significant qualms with some of Yeltsin's recent actions in granting concessions to Gorbachev over the issue of Russia's natural resources.

As a candidate, Tuleyev championed local autonomy, incremental economic reform and social defence. However, his lead there was narrow enough that early returns had shown Yeltsin leading him there. However, despite being Muslim, Tuleyev failed to receive backing from major Muslim organizations. Islamic Cultural Center and the Union of Muslims of Russia backed Yeltsin and Yur backed Grigory Yavlinsky. Rather than campaigning to persuade voters to support himself, he instead was largely campaigning to dissuade voters from supporting Yeltsin and urged voters to support the so-called "popular patriotic bloc".

Tuleyev dropped out of the race on 8 June and endorsed Zyuganov.

Despite the fact that Tuleyev dropped out of the race before the election, he had already been on the ballot during a portion of the early voting period.

Late-1990s From August 1996 to June 1997, he was a Russian minister responsible for relations with the CIS in Viktor Chernomyrdin's Second Cabinet. In this capacity, he proposed plans for a union between Russia and Belarus.

In July 1999, it was rumored that he had accepted baptism in the Russian Orthodox Church. Although he denied being religious at all and claimed that an earlier visit to Mecca was not a pilgrimage, the Islamic Shura of Chechnya, under Sharia law, condemned him to death for apostasy.

2000 presidential campaign Tuleyev ran for president again in the 2000 election.

In 2000, Tuleyev was opposed to his fellow-Communist Zyuganov (who was running again), and thus was not acting as a "backup candidate" like he had in the previous election. In fact, it was speculated that Putin's camp had convinced Tuleyev to run for the purpose of siphoning support away from Zyuganov. Tuleyev, in an appearance on NTV, essentially stopped short of endorsing Putin. This entailed a proposal to reduce the number of subjects from 89 to a mere 35, and for the chief executives of the subjects to be appointed rather than elected.

Tuleyev resigned from his position as governor after a devastating mall fire in Kemerovo. Previously it was thought that he would resign due to health problems in May 2018, following his 74th birthday.

In April 2018, Tuleyev became the chairman of the Council of People's Deputies (legislative assembly) of Kemerovo oblast.

Electoral history