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Putin's sad
anniversary
By Pavel Ivanov
May 7 was an anniversary for the current Kremlin
inhabitants - three years ago Vladimir Putin was
officially inaugurated as the second president of the
Russian Federation. It should have been an occasion for
stepping back and analyzing the results of these three
years.
However, instead of that, as
well-informed sources in Moscow report, Putin, who had
just returned to Moscow after a short recreational break
and "informal" talks with his Ukrainian colleague Leonid
Kuchma in the Crimea, had to face quite an unpleasant
surprise - a rebellion inside his own Kremlin team.
The most embarrassing thing about it all for the
president was the fact that the "rebels" turned out to
be his most trustworthy comrades-in-arms in his previous
service in the directorate of the KGB for Leningrad and
the Leningrad Region, and old buddies in the
administration of St Petersburg.
The "Chekists",
represented by two deputies of the chief of the
presidential administration - Victor Ivanov and Igor
Sechin, supported by Minister of Economy and Development
German Greff - threatened the president to
simultaneously resign if he did not change his
"political line to collaborate with the oligarchic gang
which is trying to privatize the state authorities".
The exact reaction of Putin to such a demarche
by his closest associates is yet to be known; in any
case, no resignations have as yet occurred. But our
sources claim that the president "was deeply shocked and
saddened", interpreting the "rebellion" as the first
sign that the electoral campaign in Russia -
parliamentary elections are scheduled for December,
presidential elections for early next year - has already
begun.
So what was the reason Putin's
anniversary was marred by his closest comrades?
Apparently, his entourage started getting increasingly
worried by the activities of the Boris Yeltsin "Family"
part of the administration - particularly, its head
Alexander Voloshin and his deputy, Vladislav Surkov. Out
of the blue, both recently launched an energetic
lobbying campaign with the president in support of the
so-called "project of the parliamentary majority".
It is not a big secret in Moscow's political
circles that this project, which involves several
constitutional amendments leading to the establishment
of "government by the Duma [Russian parliament]
majority", was written with the active participation of
Mikhail Khodorkovsky - head of the Russian oil major
Yukos and the richest Russian oligarch.
Let me
explain: Under the current Russian constitution,
tailored exclusively for Boris Yeltsin, only the
president has the right to nominate the head of the
government, and the Duma is merely to put its stamp of
approval on this nomination. However, quite powerful
forces in the Russian top business elite led by
Khodorkovsky and supported by the Yeltsin old guard
within the presidential administration (Voloshin,
Surkov), are now pressing the president to initiate a
crucial constitutional amendment which, in essence,
would allow the party or a coalition of parties winning
the parliamentary elections to form the government and
nominate the prime minister (with the approval of the
president).
Khodorkovsky, who has made clear his
plans to run for president in 2008, apparently has
decided not to wait that long. By far being the major
financial donor to different parties running in the Duma
campaign, he expects that - in case the constitutional
amendments are approved - he will easily be able to
control the future government, and possibly replace the
current Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.
In this
manner, Russia could get a French-style political setup.
The president would remain in overall charge, but his
powers would certainly be restricted by the
parliamentary majority. Putin, of course, realizes that.
However, he also knows that without support of
oligarchic capital, it will be quite difficult for him
to maintain "political stability" in the country, or
even get re-elected himself.
And this is what
has the old KGB guard in the Kremlin up in arms. They
are concerned that after several attempts to somehow
restrict the oligarchs' political appetite, Putin has
started giving up his positions one after another. The
latest examples: presidential blessings for the merger
of Yukos and Sibneft, which brought two most politically
active oligarchs - Khodorkovsky and Roman Abramovich,
the controlling shareholder of Sibneft - together, and
approval of construction of the first Russian private
oil pipeline - again, given to the same Khodorkovsky.
From the KGB grouping's point of view, Putin is
"betraying" the ideals of Russian statehood supremacy
over private business interests, and hence the mutiny on
the presidential ship.
Being quite busy fighting
for the ideological purity of the president, his closest
collaborators did not bother to take a closer look at
the real results of Putin's third anniversary as
president. They should have, because those results are
far from glamorous - and that's what's inviting the
oligarchs' political power moves.
The Kremlin
KGB clique boasts that Putin "prevented Russia's
disintegration" and "localized" the war in Chechnya.
However, Russian 18-year-old boys dressed in army
uniforms have still been killed in Chechnya every single
day during these three years. The widely advertised fact
that Putin rejected Yeltsin's policy of borrowing from
international financial institutions is equally
problematical. Russia's international debt of US$160
billion has decreased by just $10 billion, and
simultaneously internal debt has grown dramatically.
Solemnly-pronounced reforms of the judicial and
banking systems and the natural gas market remain at the
same stage where they were three years ago. His KGB
buddies claim that Putin returned Russia to the club of
the leading world powers, confirming its status as a
great world power. But in reality, Russia now finds
itself in the quite dubious position of chairman of the
world's club of losers. It is a sad anniversary. If
Putin now makes a deal with the oligarchs in order to
stay in power, he may end up no different than Yeltsin
in the final historical judgment on his "idealistic"
rule.
(2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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