|
President Vladimir Putin's term hit its halfway mark Tuesday,
with politicians and pundits weighing in on the ups and downs
of the unusually popular president's first two years in office.
No one questions the obvious: Putin's second year has ended with
warmer relations with Washington, a greater focus on domestic
economic reform and a continuing concentration of political power
in the Kremlin's hands. But interpretations and assessments of
these policies vary as widely as a Russian version of "Rashemon."
Andrei Ryabov of the Moscow Carnegie Center believes Putin's main
achievement has been the gradual move toward "formalizing"
political decision-making -- transferring it from informal groups
of advisers and businessmen to formal institutions, such as the
presidential administration and the federal legislature.
"That's positive for Russia's future even if today the form
of those actions seems undemocratic," Ryabov said.
Over the past year, the Kremlin has finished implementing its
plan for sidelining the once powerful governors -- many of whom
had cozy personal relationships with Putin's predecessor, Boris
Yeltsin -- and has managed to form two overwhelmingly compliant
chambers of parliament, which easily approve government-backed
legislation. Vyacheslav Volodin, head of the State Duma's pro-Kremlin
Fatherland-All Russia faction, lauded the moves to centralize
power. The president's main achievement has been to stop Russia
from disintegrating into "separate principalities and separate
republics," Interfax quoted him as saying Tuesday.
Kremlin-connected political analyst Sergei Markov agreed. He
said, "Putin's chief goal has been to strengthen state institutions,
which was his main promise to the electorate," and he has
done so.
But critics argue that, in trying to boost his own authority,
Putin has trampled on democratic institutions and individual liberties.
The Kremlin has pushed through an overhaul of the judicial system
that failed to curtail the powers of prosecutors -- often criticized
for a lack of impartiality and independence -- and played a key
role in silencing the country's two privately owned national television
stations, which had been controlled by businessmen critical of
the Kremlin. Putin has also done little to end the bloody conflict
in Chechnya, which has raged for 2 1/2 years, claiming thousands
of lives -- soldiers' and civilians' alike.
Grigory Yavlinsky, head of the liberal Yabloko party and one
of Putin's most consistent critics, lamented the Kremlin's monopoly
on power, adding that the Cabinet now fulfills technical functions
and "chiefly represents the interests of monopolies and big
business connected to the authorities," Interfax said.
Carnegie's Ryabov acknowledged that fundamentally redefining
the role of the existing political and economic elites would be
Putin's greatest challenge in the years ahead. "Either he
undertakes real modernization, in which he transforms his relations
with the old elites, or the old clans will force their logic on
him, in return for a promise to make sure he's re-elected,"
Ryabov said. "That's just what happened to Boris Yeltsin
in 1996."
Shortly after rising to power, Putin promised that the influential
oligarchs -- businessmen who often held sway over political decision-making
under Yeltsin -- would be kept "equally distant" from
the Kremlin. Indeed, a number of legal cases and police raids
were launched against major businesses suspected of withholding
taxes or other violations.
But while two of the country's most visible tycoons, media magnates
Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, left Russia fearing legal
prosecution, the fortunes of many who agreed to toe the Kremlin
line have grown rosier.
Putin's main failure has been his inability to rein in the oligarchs,
Ryabov said. "Their economic power is growing and they will
use their influence to facilitate reforms that benefit only them."
"Under Yeltsin, the country was ungovernable," Vyacheslav
Nikonov, head of the Politika think tank, said Monday. "The
oligarchs opened any door in the Kremlin with their left foot."
Putin's goal was to rein them in, he added, "but Putin's
goal has not been realized."
Nonetheless, Putin's second year in office was marked by important
liberalizing economic reforms, most prominently a flat 13 percent
income tax, loudly applauded by the West.
But economists agree that the economy rebounded from its 1998
economic crisis mainly due to high oil prices and a ruble devaluation,
and a growing number of experts have criticized the government
for failing to push through fundamental structural reforms, saying
a new crisis looms ahead.
One surprise during Putin's second year was his unequivocally
pro-Western foreign policy. Initial tension with Washington was
replaced with a pragmatic detente following the Sept. 11 attacks
on the United States, when Putin boosted cooperation with the
West to unprecedented levels -- sharing intelligence and not opposing
the stationing of U.S. troops in former Soviet states that Moscow
has traditionally considered to be its domain.
Yavlinsky praised this as Putin's chief achievement. "The
vector of foreign policy can have strategic perspectives and serve
as a prologue to Russia's becoming a European state in the widest
sense of the word," he told Interfax on Tuesday.
However, others worry that the Kremlin's pro-Western stance could
ignite dangerous discontent at home.
"It wasn't expected that the administration would be so
successful in foreign policy," said Sergei Karaganov, head
of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. But he cautioned
the pro-Western line could prove a liability due to a lack of
support from the country's elite, especially the military, in
part because Putin's ultimate goals were not clear.
Meanwhile, Putin's public approval ratings remain high. Alexander
Oslon, a Kremlin-connected pollster, said Monday that a survey
conducted by his Public Opinion Foundation found that 61 percent
of 1,500 respondents from around the country said Putin's term
has been marked by more achievements than failures, compared to
13 percent who thought the opposite.
State wage and pension increases topped the list of favored policies.
Igor Bunin, head of the Political Technologies Center, said the
president's ratings were likely to remain high until the next
elections because most people have not given up hope that the
president will lead the country out of a "dead-end situation,"
Interfax reported.
"Putin's main achievement," Oslon said, "is that
he changed the country's mental climate."
See also:
the original at
www.themoscowtimes.com
Press Release, March
26, 2002. Grigory Yavlinsky on President Putin's two years of
office
Understanding Russia
| 