Europe
Russia
Putin Takes Over
Although acting president Vladimir Putin seems a shoo-in to win the Mar. 26 presidential election, some commentators cautioned that much could happen before the voting. Winning the election is a minor task, they add, compared with the enormous challenges he will face as president: ending the Chechen war, combating the crime and corruption that dominate Russia, and dealing with a stagnant economy.
Mikhail Shchipanov sums up Putin’s overnight success in the official government daily Rossiskaya Gazeta (Jan. 11): “The secret of Putin’s popularity is mostly that his thoughts are concordant with what Russians say in their kitchens as they watch TV news programs.”
But there was also pointed ideological criticism and suspicion. “History shows that when class antagonisms flare up, the upper bourgeoisie tramples on the norms of democracy to establish dictatorship,” writes Vasily Safronchuk in Moscow’s procommunist Sovetskaya Rossiya (Jan. 5). “This is what the Russian criminal bourgeoisie did by using Yeltsin to install Putin as head of state.”
While Putin’s high popularity ratings suggest he is a cinch to win the presidency, Tatyana Netreba and Vitaly Tseplyayev of the liberal Moscow weekly Argumenty i Fakty cite six factors that could possibly wreck that scenario (Jan. 14): the danger of assassination; disastrous developments in Chechnya; the potential use of kompromat —“compromising material”—by Putin’s enemies to embarrass him; possible intrigues by Russia’s powerful oligarchs, led by Boris Berezovsky; the sudden emergence of a strong political rival, such as Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, and the ever-present risk of another economic collapse. Having listed these points, Netreba and Tseplyayev conclude, “Argumenty i Fakty experts say that Putin will be able to cope with all these dangers.”
The liberal weekly Obshchaya Gazeta (Jan. 13) surveyed some of Russia’s most respected scholars about the upcoming election, and they offered a variety of perspectives. Political scientist Liliya Shevtsova laments that “the price demanded for getting rid of Yeltsin is to give up the most important principle of democracy: honest and equal elections, i.e., to consent, in effect, to the formation of a monarchical regime under a mysterious stranger.” But she warns that Putin’s current source of popularity, the war in Chechnya, could become his undoing. “Putin needs to think about how to distance himself from Chechnya, because it is impossible to win this war.”
Sociologist Igor Klyamkin told Obshchaya Gazeta that he expected the election campaign to be a platform for pluralism. “I would not say this election lacks an alternative, because on many major issues we do not have a national consensus,” he says. “Whoever opposes Putin as an alternative will express the will of a substantial minority on many major issues, and the president will have to take those views into account.”
By contrast, Aleksandr Tsipko, a political scientist, stresses: “Democratic procedures cannot be placed above the interests of national development.” This is a moment, he says, when the need to rally around a popular leader is paramount.
Commentators stress that the Russian public could easily become impatient if the war in Chechnya drags on much longer. But there are strong—and somewhat contradictory—pressures on Moscow both to end the war and to win it. In the Moscow youth daily Komsomolskaya Pravda (Jan. 14), Viktor Baranets and Sergei Gerasimenko say Russian casualties in the current fighting since last fall could be twice as high as the official toll. The real figures, they say, are at least 1,300 killed and about 5,000 wounded—compared with almost 4,000 killed and 17,900 wounded in the entire first Chechen war of 1994-96.
The political and economic costs could also be higher this time around. In predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan, whose border runs less than 100 miles south of Chechnya, the independent Zerkalo expressed anxiety about Russian nationalism (Jan. 4): “These days, the chauvinistic mood is soaring in [Russian] society. However, it will hardly find understanding outside Russia. Instigation of virulent chauvinism is playing with fire.”
Afanasy Sborov of Moscow’s liberal Kommersant Daily points out (Jan. 14): “There has been a drift toward radical Islam inside Chechnya in recent years, and influential Chechen leaders have established close ties with extremist movements in the Islamic world.” If the war ends inconclusively as it did last time, says Sborov, these leaders will intensify their operations to “export Islamic revolution” in Central Asia, the Middle East, Kashmir, and Europe.
On the Russian side, adds Sborov, anti-Western generals are playing a more prominent role than in the first war. So, if Moscow wins the war militarily, Putin could become “a hostage of the generals.” There are, of course, economic pressures on the Kremlin to end the war soon. In Kommersant Daily (Jan. 5), Andrei Bagrov says the conflict is draining funds from the federal budget and more money must be printed, raising the risk of inflation.
In addition, Moscow still needs help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “A quick and outwardly successful conclusion to the war would resolve all external problems,” writes Bagrov. “The West would stop accusing Russia of excessive brutality and would start respecting it again. [And this] would soften the IMF’s position.’’
