Competition between Dargins and Avars for political influence in Dagestan intensified in 2005-6 and culminated in the replacement of a Dargin by an Avar as holder of the State Council chairmanship. Magomedali Magomedov, the Dargin who was Dagestan's de facto leader since 1983, resigned in February 2006. In contravention of the informal power-sharing arrangement between Dargins and Avars, which split the republic's two top posts between the two ethnic groups, the new Avar president appointed an ethnic Kumyk as prime minister.