Can Putin turn Russia around?

Fresh from a resounding poll victory, the Russian President, Mr. Vladimir Putin's most challenging immediate task will be to tackle Russia's oligarchs and break their cozy relationship with the bureaucrats, writes VLADIMIR RADYUHIN.

LAST WEEK, Russia turned a page in its post-Soviet history with the election of Mr. Vladimir Putin as its new President. The largely-expected convincing victory of Mr. Putin, who scored 52 per cent of the votes against 29 per cent for his communist rival, Mr. Gennady Zyuganov, was a vote in favour of putting an end to chaos, corruption and economic disarray that marked the eight-year rule of Mr. Boris Yeltsin, but at the same time it was a vote against returning to a communist past.

Mr. Putin, who showed his steely hand in crushing Chechen rebels, won the hearts of Russians craving for a strong leader, law and order. People backed him because he is everything his predecessor was not. Whereas Mr. Yeltsin was impulsive and unpredictable, Mr. Putin is pragmatic, reserved, and self-disciplined. Mr. Yeltsin was a hard drinker, Mr. Putin is a near teetotaller. Mr. Yeltsin was old and ill, Mr. Putin is young and robust, boasting a black belt in judo. For Mr. Yeltsin ascension to the Kremlin throne was the pinnacle of a life-long career, for Mr. Putin it is the beginning of a long road. A fiery anti-communist has yielded place to a disciplined pragmatist. For Mr. Yeltsin power was an end in itself, for Mr. Putin it is an instrument to achieve a goal.

What are his goals? The media has dubbed Mr. Putin, a former KGB officer catapulted from obscure Kremlin official to President- elect in the space of one year, a ``black box'' because he is yet to spell out his plans in detail. The President-elect campaigned on a platform of restoring a strong state governed by law and building a social-oriented market economy. In foreign policy, he preaches putting Russia's relations with other countries on a more business-like, pragmatic footing to help economic revival at home.

Mr. Putin said his ultimate goal was to raise people's well- being by promoting stable economic growth. This requires massive investments into Russia's aging industries, which in turn calls for political stability. ``There will be no major investment until we have a solid political system, stability and a strong Government defending the market and creating favourable conditions for investment,'' Mr. Putin said in a recent interview.

Mr. Putin will need to overturn Mr. Yeltsin's ``divide-and-rule'' method, which allowed the ex-President to govern during his long bouts of ill health. The new President is expected to end rivalry between the Kremlin administration and the Cabinet of Ministers and restore central authority by curbing the runaway powers of regional bosses, who have taken full advantage of Mr. Yeltsin's ill-advised offer to ``take as much authority as you can digest''. Mr. Putin is also determined to fight rampant corruption and cut to size Russia's oligarchs who grabbed much of Russia's natural resources and gained undue political influence under Mr. Yeltsin.

Many analysts say that tackling these daunting tasks in a country as vast and diverse as Russia, especially after years of chaos, will be impossible without reverting to authoritarian rule. Optimists predict that Mr. Putin could turn out to be Russia's De Gaulle. ``Like De Gaulle, Putin came to power at a time of chaos and anarchy. He enjoys the support of most elite groups and a majority of the population. And his prescription for Russia is very similar to what De Gaulle proposed - rapid modernisation under a regime of personal power and guided democracy,'' said Mr. Sergei Markov of the Institute of Political Studies. ``It should be a very limited and `tender' authoritarian regime, one that can lead us to normal democracy in the near future.''

Pessimists fear that Mr. Putin's announced ``dictatorship of law'' will in effect be simply a dictatorship, a police state in which the whim of the President or his administration will be the law. They say the bloody military operation in Chechnya is the first sign of things to come. However, most experts agree that Mr. Putin does not need to resort to dictatorship. He has inherited vast constitutional powers which enabled Mr. Yeltsin to rule like a tsar while retaining all the trimmings of a democratic state. In fact, authoritarian-guided democracy is already in place in Russia, as evidenced by the installation of Mr. Putin in the Kremlin as Mr. Yeltsin's chosen successor and the Kremlin-manipulated victory of the pro-Government Unity party in the parliamentary polls in December.

Indications are that Mr. Putin's authoritarian rule will take civilised forms. Unlike Mr. Yeltsin, who loved head-on confrontations with his enemies, Mr. Putin prefers compromise. He has quietly persuaded the country's most restive regional barons, Mr. Mintimir Shaimiyev of Tatarstan and Mr. Murtaza Rakhimov of Bashkortastan, to resume paying taxes to the federal budget, which they stopped doing under Mr. Yeltsin. He has indicated his willingness to cut deals with the communists, saying that their strong performance in the parliamentary and presidential elections dictated the need to pursue policies that would be ``more balanced and directed towards lifting the real standard of living of ordinary people''.

Mr. Putin's most challenging immediate task will be to tackle Russia's oligarchs and break their cozy relationship with the bureaucrats. The first test of Mr. Putin's strength will come when he names a new Government in about six weeks time. The Cabinet lineup will show whether he has been able to get rid of people linked to various business groups and the notorious ``Kremlin family'' which helped him win the elections.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : Penitent Pope
Next     : Chaos in Kosovo