March 26, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4199 • 4200   

Johnson's Russia List
#4199
26 March 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Russia votes for president, Putin upbeat.
2. Toronto Sun: Matthew Fisher, Vlad the Enigma rules in Russia.
3. New York Times editorial: The Putin Puzzle.
4. The Sunday Times (UK): Mark Franchetti, Russia's rich await cold hand of President Putin.
5. Moscow Times: Sarah Karush, Zyuganov: Elections Will See Mass 
Fraud.
6. Reuters: Timothy Heritage, Putin's rise alarms some Russians,others impressed.
7. Washington Post: Fred Hiatt, Another Win for Yeltsin?
8. Los Angeles Times: Gregory Freidin, In the Days of Reform Fatigue, the Policeman Cometh.
9. New York Times: Jack Matlock, Russia Votes: Will Democracy Win? 
10. Reuters: Russian local polls along with Kremlin vote.
11. Bloomberg: Russians on How They Voted in Presidential 
Election.]

******

#1
Russia votes for president, Putin upbeat
By Gareth Jones

MOSCOW, March 26 (Reuters) - Russians voted on Sunday for their second
president of the post-Soviet era in an election Acting President Vladimir
Putin appeared certain to win. 

Election officials reported a good turnout among the 108 million voters
across Russia's 11 time zones. They said they expected a final nationwide
turnout of up to 70 percent, well clear of the 50 percent level needed to
make the poll valid. 

The main question for Putin, who has given few details about his plans if
he wins a four-year term as president, is whether he will get the 50
percent plus one vote needed to win outright on Sunday and avoid a runoff
on April 16. 

Putin, an ex-KGB spy who was little known until Boris Yeltsin named him as
his preferred successor last August, struck a confident pose as he cast his
vote in Moscow. He said he would spend the rest of the day relaxing in the
country enjoying a traditional steam bath. 

Asked about his chances, Putin, 47, said: ``In an election battle, one
should always be confident of success.'' 

But Putin's main rival, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who lost
to Yeltsin in 1996, said he was confident of getting through to a second
round. ``In the second round there will be two candidates -- Zyuganov and
Putin,'' he said. 

Zyuganov cautioned against any possible falsification of the election
results. About 1,000 foreign observers have been deployed across Russia to
ensure the poll is conducted fairly. 

Opinion polls put liberal Grigory Yavlinsky in third place. 

Putin's supporters hope he will provide stability and security after a
decade of chaos, corruption and upheaval. 

He owes his popularity mainly to the military campaign in separatist
Chechnya, where on Sunday Interfax news agency said about 2,000 rebel
fighters had seized the town of Nozhai-Yurt. 

The Defence Ministry quickly dismissed the report. 

``This is propaganda to make the situation tense,'' a spokesman said.
Hundreds had cast ballots in the town, he said. 

CLASHES IN CHECHNYA 

Moscow has insisted on holding the election in Chechnya, even though much
of the region has been reduced to rubble and many people rendered homeless
by months of Russian bombardment. 

Russia's main spokesman on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, later said
troops had clashed with groups of rebels in the village of Tsentoroi, some
20 km (12 miles) from Nozhai-Yurt. 

Chechnya was clearly on Putin's mind on Sunday. 

``This is important for the Chechen people and for all of Russia because
whoever is elected will know that people voted for him and that he will
bear responsibility for these people and for this republic (Chechnya),''
Putin told reporters. 

Putin, who is facing voters for the first time, has vowed to rebuild the
authority of the Russian state while pressing on with market reforms. Some
liberals fear he will roll back hard-won democratic freedoms -- a charge he
has denied. 

Former President Yeltsin, whose shock resignation on New Year's Eve
catapulted Putin into the Kremlin, said as he cast his ballot in Moscow
that he was sure reforms would continue. 

``Everyone is waiting for change. There will be some changes but the main
thing is that the reform course must be maintained and it will be. I am
sure of this,'' Yeltsin said. 

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sounded an equally optimistic note.
``I believe that whoever becomes president, Russia will make every effort
to raise herself,'' he said. 

PUTIN VAGUE ON PLANS 

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, once a contender for president but now keen to
build bridges with Putin, called for greater cooperation among Russia's
leaders for the sake of the economy. 

``Russia does not need any revolutionary shocks...Russia has everything in
abundance except consensus,'' he said after voting. 

Voting began in the Far East and then moved westward as 8:00 a.m. arrived
across Russia's time zones. Polls were closing at 8:00 p.m., which in the
westernmost stations, in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, meant 1700 GMT. 

First preliminary results were expected shortly after the last polls closed. 

Putin, who has been prime minister since August, has said little about his
plans after the election. Even some of his supporters are sceptical about
his ability to restore order in the sprawling, impoverished country. 

``Moscow steals, here they steal. People are voting for Putin in the hope
that somehow he will stop it,'' said Nikolai, a sailor who voted for Putin.
``But of course there is no hope.'' 

*******

#2
Toronto Sun
March 26, 2000 
Vlad the Enigma rules in Russia
By MATTHEW FISHER
Sun's Columnist at Large

MOSCOW -- Polls suggest that between 48% and 57% of Russian voters will 
cast their ballots for Vladimir Putin today. 

That may well be so. Calls over the past few days to Krasnoyarsk, 
Novosibirsk and St. Petersburg and interviews in Moscow found solid but 
hardly overwhelming support for Putin. 

Putin will win today's vote, or a second vote with today's runner up, which 
would be held April 16. But that was decided the moment the Yeltsin clique 
chose him. The wonder of it is that given the immense power of the Kremlin, 
Vladimir Vladimirovich isn't doing even better. 

The acting president has shown he is adept at using the Kremlin to keep well 
ahead of candidates who have not been awarded access to the national treasury 
and command of the security forces. Putin has also enjoyed outrageously 
positive media coverage. He leads almost every television newscast and is the 
favourite of most leading newspapers, including a few organizations which 
seem to have been visited by friends of the acting president with ties to the 
country's security ministries. 

He has appeared on television as Vlad the Munificent and Vlad the Relaxed, 
Friendly, Good-Humoured and Comical, doling out such presents as a 20% raise 
to teachers and doctors; as Vlad the Statesman alongside Britain's equally 
shameless self-promoter, Tony Blair; as Vlad the Warrior at the controls - 
albeit in the back seat - of a fighter jet; as Vlad the Sportsman at hockey 
games and in judo matches and as a Man of Action in a recent travel blitz 
that has seen him in a different part of Russia almost every day. 

Ironically, this whirlwind of a Russian Everyman claims to be too busy and 
too important to be bothered with undignified diversions such as campaigning 
for Russia's top job. 

Those who had a good run as regional despots during Boris Yeltsin's chaotic 
rule have been tripping over one another to ingratiate themselves with the 
Kremlin's new czar. It has been painful and hilarious at the same time to see 
famously proud politicians such as Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov behave 
obsequiously in Putin's presence. 

Only last summer Putin was a virtual unknown and Luzhkov a swaggering 
would-be president. Last week Putin said Luzhkov would behave, or else. A few 
days later Luzhkov was plainly happy to be allowed to stand in Putin's 
shadow. 

One of the few to escape with his dignity intact has been former prime 
minister Yevgeni Primakov. He was widely regarded as the favourite to replace 
Yeltsin until Yeltsin installed Putin in his old job last fall after Primakov 
began to ask some hard questions about the financial dealings of Yeltsin's 
family and cronies. 

Declined to run 

Primakov declined to fill out the presidential dance card as an also-ran. He 
has withdrawn from public life almost as quickly as Putin has entered it. 

Those Russians who support Putin invariably say the same things. They crave 
order. They like what he has done in Chechnya where the Russian Army and its 
acting commander-in-chief have declared victory while the war goes on. 

They hope Putin will whack the sinister instant billionaires who plundered 
Soviet state enterprises as they were privatized during the Yeltsin era. They 
also want him to be a lot tougher with the West. 

It hasn't found much place in the Russian media and has not been much 
commented upon elsewhere, but there are many other Russians who dread what 
may be in store for them. Some fear that Putin will restrict civil liberties 
in a country still infamous for denying them and that he will turn Russia 
further inward at a time of unprecedented globalization and accelerated 
international economic growth. Mostly, they complain they have no idea who 
Putin is. 

Their feelings were summed up by a 34-year-old mechanical engineer who has 
just applied to emigrate to Canada with his wife and two children. 

"I don't know Putin. I don't know what this man did for the KGB. I don't 
have any idea how he came to be the favourite in this election. I don't have 
any idea what he wants to do with Russia. So I am not happy," Maxim said 
before attending an English class. 

"It is not that I fear a new Stalinist period. It is that Putin is an enigma 
and I am not interested in discovering who this enigma is." 

The problem for Maxim, and the millions who think like him, is that many 
other Russians are more biddable. They think they've figured out this enigma. 
They stoically await the harsh medicine Putin has promised them. 

******

#3
New York Times
March 26, 2000
Editorial
The Putin Puzzle

Unless the polls are badly mistaken or voter turnout is too low to validate 
the balloting, Vladimir Putin is likely to be elected president of Russia 
today. He might be best described as a K.G.B. democrat, with all the 
contradictions the term implies. Mr. Putin is a hybrid politician, the 
product of the recent transformation of Russia from a totalitarian state to a 
shaky democracy. Like his country, he seems suspended between Russia's 
history and its future, impressed by the benefits of liberty and free markets 
yet drawn to the idea of a firm leader who can restore stability. There is 
little doubt that he will be a forceful president, determined to reverse 
Russia's decline. The question is whether he will do so democratically. 

Mr. Putin's rise to power has been improbable. Last August, Boris Yeltsin 
impulsively decided that Mr. Putin should be his heir and made him prime 
minister. Mr. Putin, the former head of the internal security service that 
succeeded the K.G.B., became acting president when Mr. Yeltsin resigned on 
New Year's Eve. The primary source of his popularity is the brutal military 
assault on Chechnya. Compared with Russia's last two leaders, Mikhail 
Gorbachev and Mr. Yeltsin, Mr. Putin is not a seasoned politician. More 
important, he has not shown a decisive commitment to political and economic 
reform. 

There is much that needs fixing in Russia today. The economy is barely 
stirring. Commerce is warped by the manipulations of criminal gangs. The 
government cannot collect taxes, and a handful of fabulously wealthy men, who 
benefited from a giveaway of state property by the Yeltsin government, wield 
disproportionate power in the Kremlin. Millions of Russians have fallen into 
poverty, and the health care system is near collapse, with life expectancy 
for men now only 58 years. 

After the dizzying gyrations of the Yeltsin years, a steady hand in the 
Kremlin would be welcome. Mr. Putin is smart and articulate and appears to be 
a skillful, pragmatic manager. He comes with some democratic credentials. He 
has declared his support for "fundamental political rights and human 
liberties," and seems to harbor no nostalgia for the suffocating ideology of 
Communism, or the terrors carried out in its name. As an aide to Anatoly 
Sobchak, the reformist mayor of St. Petersburg, Mr. Putin helped build the 
beginnings of a capitalist economy in the early 1990's. 

If Mr. Putin chooses to advance reform while protecting the newly won 
liberties of the Russian people, and makes government an effective, honest 
and compassionate agent of change, he can do much to realize the expectations 
raised by the demise of Communism. But his actions thus far suggest he may 
take a different, harsher course. The military campaign in Chechnya, directed 
with enthusiasm by Mr. Putin, is the most ominous sign. Another source of 
concern is xenophobic campaign reporting by the state-owned television 
network. 

Mr. Putin could prove to be a younger, healthier version of Yuri Andropov, 
the hardened K.G.B. chief who briefly served as Soviet leader in the early 
1980's and tried to rouse Russia from the coma it had slipped into under 
Leonid Brezhnev. In December Mr. Putin pointedly ordered that Mr. Andropov's 
bust be put back in a place of honor at the entrance to what was once K.G.B. 
headquarters in Moscow. Mr. Putin, who is 47, is steeped in the values and 
culture of the security agency, including its emphasis on order, discipline 
and the preservation of a strong central government. His dream as a teenager 
was to join the K.G.B., and he served the agency loyally for 17 years, 
including a tour as a spy in East Germany in the late 1980's. 

Mr. Putin has made clear that his primary objectives are rebuilding the 
machinery of state power and creating an orderly society. In the American 
translation of a series of autobiographical interviews soon to be published 
as a book entitled "First Person," he says the ferocious assault on Chechnya 
is necessary to prevent the disintegration of Russia. He admires the slyness 
of K.G.B. efforts to stifle dissent in the Soviet era and regrets the haste 
with which Moscow exited Eastern Europe. He has warned against the 
independence of regional governors and seems ambivalent about press freedoms. 

There is no model for enlightened democratic leadership in Russia. Mr. 
Gorbachev, for all his efforts to remake the Soviet Union, could never 
discard his faith in Socialism. Mr. Yeltsin's embrace of democracy was 
heartfelt, but his leadership was flawed. Mr. Putin has the chance to be both 
democratic and effective. It would be a great loss for Russia and the world 
if he followed the K.G.B. rulebook and turned the Kremlin back into a 
fortress. 

******

#4
The Sunday Times (UK)
26 March 2000
[for personal use only]
Russia's rich await cold hand of President Putin 
Mark Franchetti, Moscow 
Ready to put the brakes on: the cliques that have grown rich amid Russia's 
turmoil fear a crackdown from Vladimir Putin when he is voted into the 
Kremlin today

AS Russia's 108m voters go to the polls to elect a new president today, some 
of the country's richest and most powerful men will be apprehensively 
assessing their prospects of clinging to both money and influence under 
Vladimir Putin, the almost certain victor. 

In public the oligarchs - business barons and Kremlin puppet masters who rose 
to prominence under Boris Yeltsin, the former president - have declared their 
support for Putin. 

In private, however, some talk of a "Putin blacklist", others of a "Putin 
safe" filled with kompromat, compromising material on the murky methods used 
to build their fortunes. "After the elections there will be no oligarchs," 
Putin said at one point during his campaign. 

Kremlin sources said last week that after winning over Russian voters with 
his ruthless war against Chechen rebels, Putin was preparing for another 
battle that would be sure to increase his popularity still further: a 
crackdown to break the oligarchs' decade-long hold on the country's crippled 
economy and Byzantine politics. Putin's aim is to ensure that true power 
resides in the president alone. 

Some say his early career in the KGB and his spell as head of the FSB, its 
successor, suggest that he may already have the information he requires to 
curtail the influence of the oligarchs by mounting damaging investigations 
into their business activities. 

"All of them are feeling uncomfortable," said one former Kremlin adviser. 
"Fortunes were made by bending some rules and cutting some corners, and here 
comes a man who is better placed than anyone to know the darkest secrets. He 
can have files on anyone and they know it." 

The targets could include Rem Vyakhirev, the head of Gasprom, which manages 
38% of the world's gas resources, and Anatoli Chubais, a former deputy prime 
minister who now runs RAO UES, Russia's electricity board. Both have built 
substantial political and financial power bases. 

"These are the jewels in the crown," said a senior industry source. "It will 
be a battle for Russia's resources and levers of power. But removing 
Vyakhirev and Chubais won't be easy. Their companies are only partly 
state-owned and both men are well entrenched with the management that would 
have to vote them out." 

Kremlin sources also indicated that Putin may move against Boris Berezovsky, 
the most controversial oligarch and the powerbroker of Yeltsin's regime, 
whose business interests range from oil to aluminium, from cars to the media. 

Berezovsky, two of whose Geneva-based companies have been investigated by 
Swiss prosecutors inquiring into the overseas revenues of Aeroflot, Russia's 
national airline, was in defiant mood last week. "Of course arresting me 
would increase Putin's popularity. but one thing should be clear," he said. 
"No president in Russia, not yesterday and not now, can live without the 
support of big capital. Putin cannot decide there will be no oligarchs in 
Russia. If anything, their role will increase." 

Berezovsky, who secured the release of several Russian soldiers held by 
Chechen guerrillas after the 1994-96 war in the breakaway republic, has met 
Putin several times to discuss the conflict in Chechnya. Nevertheless, Putin 
is expected to act swiftly to take control of ORT, Russia's most popular 
television channel, away from Berezovsky - who dictates its political 
coverage even though he is a relatively minor shareholder. 

Despite a recent dip in popularity, Putin, 47, may win enough votes in 
today's first round of the presidential election to secure the majority he 
needs for victory. In the latest polls his rating was hovering around the 50% 
mark, with Gennady Zyuganov, the communist leader, trailing behind at 20% and 
Grigori Yavlinski, the main liberal candidate, at 5%. 

Ten candidates are running. Should Putin fail to win a majority, a second 
round will be held on April 16. He has said he intends to push for a change 
to the constitution that would extend the presidential term from four years 
to seven. 

Putin's closeness to former KGB men has raised fears of a trend towards 
authoritarianism in the new Russia. 

Sergei Ivanov, head of Russia's Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, head of 
the FSB, and Viktor Cherkesov, his deputy and a renowned tormentor of 
dissidents in the Soviet era, are all close friends of Putin. Viktor Ivanov, 
a senior Putin aide, used to work for the KGB in St Petersburg. 

Several leading journalists expect a clampdown on the liberal press once 
Putin is elected. Unity, the party backing him in parliament, has proposed 
scrapping tax breaks for media organisations that are not due to expire until 
2004. The initiative has been widely interpreted as a move to curtail the 
power of the press. 

Critics have also issued warnings of a creeping "KGB-isation" of the Russian 
state. Putin's tendency to secretiveness has already left its mark on 
policy-making. Garant, a Russian firm that keeps a database of government 
actions, tracked down 1,000 of Putin's official decisions as acting president 
during January and February. More than half were classified. 

*******

#5
Moscow Times
March 25, 2000 
Zyuganov: Elections Will See Mass Fraud 
By Sarah Karush
Staff Writer

As the country prepared to elect a new president, the leading challenger to 
acting President Vladimir Putin warned ominously on Friday that the election 
results could be falsified. 

Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said Friday he feared "massive 
falsification," and was dispatching observers from his party to each of the 
country's 94,500 polling precincts, Interfax reported. 

For his part, Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky will have about 70 percent of 
polling stations covered by observers, his aide, Olga Beklemishcheva, said. 

Another Yabloko spokeswoman quoted Yavlinsky as saying that overall there 
would be 127,000 observers from "united democratic forces." 

Beklemishcheva said each regional Yabloko affiliate is responsible for 
posting observers at as many precincts as possible. She said sometimes they 
share the responsibility with affiliates of other liberal parties. 

While virtually every opposition party has made allegations of election 
fraud, opinions differ as to where along the process that fraud might occur. 

Many, including Zyuganov, point suspiciously to the computerized national 
vote-counting system known as GAS-Vybory. 

Fraud on the level of GAS-Vybory, however, would in theory be simple to 
detect and prove. 

Here is how it works: At the end of the day, ballot boxes are opened at each 
of the 94,500 polling precincts and the ballots are counted on the spot, by 
hand. 

Observers - whether journalists, or representatives of a candidate or a 
political party, or even of a public organization - can be present 
throughout. Observers are also given an official copy of the protocol - the 
document that reports the results. 

Protocols are then sent from each precinct higher up the chain, to a 
so-called territorial election commission, and it is at the territorial level 
that the results are plugged into GAS-Vybory, based on what the protocols 
say. 

Thus, if the Communists have observers at each polling station, they ought to 
be able to tally up the votes and definitively document any discrepancies. 
But while Zyuganov claims fraud after every election, his observers never 
offer up any protocols as evidence. 

Alexander Yurin, executive director of the Institute for Election Systems 
Development, a nongovernmental organization, complained that politicians make 
accusations of fraud but do not offer evidence. 

Nikolai Petrov of the Moscow Carnegie Center argues that fraud does take 
place at the level of the territorial election commission via GAS-Vybory. 

In a comment posted last week on David Johnson's List, an e-mail discussion 
group about Russia, Petrov argued that data from protocols are changed as 
they are entered into GAS-Vybory - observers do not watch this data-entry 
process - and observers then fail to follow through in documenting that 
fraud. 

Beklemishcheva of Yabloko went further, saying the Communist observers 
collaborate in election fraud - even when it is at their own expense. 

"Last time, in 1996, we were counting on the Communists, but they made a deal 
with the government," she said. 

Yurin said that the Central Election Commission could improve transparency by 
posting each of the 94,500 protocols on the Internet. 

Beklemishcheva added that she thought falsification occurred earlier in the 
process, however, with ballot boxes simply being switched. 

But that would involve having to get around observers who can insist on the 
ballot boxes never being taken out of their sight. 

And either way - whether by switching ballot boxes, or massaging results 
entered into GAS-Vybory - to make a real difference in the outcome would 
require a conspiracy involving thousands of willing hands. 

"What influences elections, happens before the election," Yurin said, citing 
biased media and outright intimidation in rural areas. 

None of which rules out some vote-rigging - particularly in places with less 
stringent control over the precincts, such as jails, military bases and 
hospitals. 

During the December Duma elections, at least one prisoner's vote was cast by 
somebody else. 

Dmitry Neverovsky, who is in jail in Kaluga awaiting trial on charges of 
draft-dodging, was denied his request to vote, said his mother, Tatyana 
Kotlyar. 

When she complained to the local election commission, she was told that the 
protocols showed Neverovsky had already voted. 

******

#6
Putin's rise alarms some Russians,others impressed
By Timothy Heritage

MOSCOW, March 26 (Reuters) - Lyudmila Gosteva rises from the dinner table and 
turns off the television in disgust as Russian news shows police breaking up 
a rally in neighbouring Belarus. 

``That's what it'll be like here,'' she says. ``And pretty soon we're all 
going to be making secret reports on each other.'' 

Gosteva, a pensioner, is voting for the liberal Grigory Yavlinsky in Sunday's 
presidential poll as she fears victory for former KGB spy Vladimir Putin, the 
front-runner, would mean turning the clock back to the repressive days of 
Soviet rule. 

At a supper of mushroom soup followed by carp on the eve of the election, the 
side dish is politics. Emotions are stirred by a little vodka and shock at 
the television pictures showing the police using batons against opposition 
demonstrators in Belarus. 

Putin has built up a huge lead in opinion polls, showing how much he has 
impressed some Russians. But others, particularly some liberals and 
intellectuals, are alarmed. 

Tatyana Kuznetsova takes up Putin's cause, reminding the other dinner guests 
that Boris Yeltsin backed Putin as his chosen successor when he resigned on 
December 31 and that the acting president has committed himself to reforms. 

``I don't think Putin will try to push through reforms as fast as Yeltsin but 
I don't think Yeltsin would have supported him if he were a dangerous man,'' 
says Tatyana, a charity worker. 

Echoing the thoughts of many people across the country, she adds: ``At least 
he's healthy. You may laugh, but I was really impressed when he flew to 
Chechnya in that jet.'' 

Putin, who said he would not campaign so that he could concentrate on his job 
as acting president, flew to the southern region in a fighter plane less than 
a week before the election to talk to Russian soldiers fighting separatist 
rebels there. 

Tatyana is in a minority at the dinner table. 

``He's Russia's answer to Pinochet,'' says Sasha Yermakov, who runs a 
construction firm. Pinochet ran a military dictatorship in Chile for 17 
years, during which more than 3,000 people died or disappeared. ``I'm 
thinking about leaving the country.'' 

Nikolai Shevtsov, another Russian guest at the dinner table, says he does not 
fear Putin but sees no reason to vote for any of the other 10 candidates. 

A market trader who has seen business slump this winter has lost faith in all 
Russian politicians. 

``What does it matter who we vote for? We know nothing is going to change. 
And it's obvious Putin will win,'' he says. 

He is going to put his vote in the box on the ballot paper which allows 
voters to reject all the candidates. 

After the meal, the guests say farewell, reminding each other to put their 
clocks forward to summer time overnight. 

Putin has told them this symbolises the start of a new age, but these guests 
are deeply uncertain what that means. 

******

#7
Washington Post
March 2, 2000
[for personal use only]
Another Win for Yeltsin?
By Fred Hiatt

Hard-eyed Vladimir Putin is forecast to win today's presidential election in 
Russia. If he does, there will be another winner, too--Russia's forgotten 
man, Boris Yeltsin. But as with so many of Yeltsin's tactical victories, this 
one will come at a sad and sizable cost to the values that Yeltsin once stood 
for.

As to the victory, you only have to think back eight months, when Yeltsin was 
beset by enemies. There seemed little doubt that if and when he yielded 
power, those enemies would turn on him like wolves on a declawed bear. They 
would indict his associates, hound his daughter, perhaps send Yeltsin himself 
into exile or to jail. His only hope, many believed, was to somehow suspend 
the constitution and cling to his Kremlin perch until death.

Looking for a third way, Yeltsin discarded one prime minister after another, 
judging each potential successor too weak or too disloyal to guarantee his 
protection in retirement. Then he found Putin, a steely KGB veteran wily 
enough to cripple Yeltsin's enemies, dynamic enough to win an election and, 
it seemed, faithful enough to guarantee the ailing president a peaceful old 
age. Yeltsin resigned early; Acting President Putin decreed full immunity for 
his patron; the deal was struck.

A remarkable turnabout, all in all. But what of the price? Yeltsin's complex, 
contradictory legacy remains to be assessed, and Putin is just setting out to 
create his own, so there can be no definitive answer. Yet the contrast in 
character and biography is inescapable.

Yeltsin was a Communist apparatchik, but he rose to prominence in opposition 
to the system, a proto-populist huffing at, and humiliated by, Mikhail 
Gorbachev's Politburo. He defined himself as a man of courage and principle 
when he jumped on a tank to rally Moscow's ordinary citizens against a 
Communist coup.

As president, he was far from a perfect democrat; a tolerance for deep 
corruption and two shameful wars against Russian citizens in Chechnya blot 
his record, among numerous other disgraces.

Yet at key moments, when many of his advisers were tugging another way, he 
chose bravely. In 1996, trailing badly in polls to a Communist rival, he 
chose to campaign and take his chances rather than--as his inner circle 
advised--finding some pretext to cancel the vote.

He for the most part let Ukraine go its own way, when many Russians wanted 
revenge against what they viewed as a wayward province. He found ways, time 
after time, to postpone a closer alliance with the neo-Stalinist leader of 
neighboring Belarus.

And he was, in a very non-Soviet way, willing to live with his enemies. He 
and Gorbachev detested each other, but Yeltsin allowed his predecessor to 
dwell in peace and attack him harshly--a first in Russian history. Though he 
turned his tanks against the parliament-based leaders of a 1993 coup, many of 
those same leaders shortly returned to public life, as governors and members 
of parliament.

It's hard to imagine Putin being similarly forgiving; hard to imagine him, 
too, having a few vodkas with Ukraine's president and then signing away 
Crimea and Sevastopol. It's true, as Yeltsin biographer Leon Aron said in an 
interview, that Putin may be committed to continuing the removal of communism 
from Russian power structures. His election may in fact mark the end point of 
Russia's struggle between communism and reform; in that sense, Putin's 
election will be a victory for Yeltsin's legacy and not just his personal 
safety, Aron says.

But in shaping the nature of a new, non-Communist state, Putin's instincts 
may differ sharply from those of Yeltsin in his prime. "At the very least," 
Aron says, "Putin will be more cavalier with all these instruments of 
repression that Yeltsin significantly dulled or was reluctant to use."

Already Putin has rejuvenated the old KGB, gone after independent journalists 
and harassed environmental activists. He is popular precisely because he 
promises to restore order and discipline and Russia's status as a great 
power--which Yeltsin is blamed for dissipating. Putin's success as an 
anti-Yeltsin serves Yeltsin well, for the longer Putin remains popular and 
secure, the less likely he will need to find scapegoats, from Yeltsin's 
entourage or elsewhere, as problems arise.

Gorbachev did not choose his successor; he had to watch as Yeltsin, while 
protecting Gorbachev personally, dismantled his beloved Union of Soviet 
Socialist Republics. Like Gorbachev, Yeltsin leaves power with titanic 
accomplishments and colossal mistakes, reviled (like Gorbachev) by most of 
his countrymen.

Unlike Gorbachev, Yeltsin is ceding power voluntarily, and--if Putin wins--he 
will have managed to anoint his successor--a remarkable feat for a leader 
with zero popularity in an electoral democracy. Whether he will be happier in 
retirement, or his legacy better served, remains to be seen. 

******

#8
Los Angeles Times
March 26, 2000
[for personal use only]
In the Days of Reform Fatigue, the Policeman Cometh 
By GREGORY FREIDIN
Gregory Freidin Is Chairman of the Slavic Languages Department at Stanford 
and Co-editor of "Russia at the Barricades: Eyewitness Accounts of the Moscow 
Coup (August 1991)."

STANFORD--'The plumber will come," begins a 1980s poem by Dmitry Prigov, 
"and will smash the toilet; the gasman will break the gas stove; the 
electrician will do the wiring in. But, behold, the policeman cometh to say 
to them all: 'Enough of this horsing around--.' " The poem was eerily 
prescient about the course of reform in Russia from Mikhail S. Gorbachev to 
Vladimir V. Putin. Was Gorbachev the plumber? Was Boris N. Yeltsin the 
electrician? Was the demonic magnate Boris A. Berezovsky the gasman? Or was 
it the other way around? As Russians make their way to their polling stations 
today to elect their second president, they have no doubt that the policeman 
is Putin. 
Order is what Russian citizens yearn for, and they have, according to 
polls, invested their hopes in a former intelligence operative, a man of 
apparent self-discipline but unpretentious in demeanor and looks. What may 
have been a liability in a politician in the more charismatic times of 
perestroika and post-communist Russia has become in the days of reform 
fatigue an invaluable asset. Gray is beautiful. 
Putin's reputation as a man of law and order stems from his 
uncompromising stand on Chechnya. The current Russian word for chaos and 
disorder is bespredel, meaning, a state of existing without limits. Putin 
resolved to put an end to bespredel in Chechnya, even at the price of 
removing restraints on the Russian army. Most of his compatriots are 
relieved: Here is a man who knows how to set limits. 
The question is whether Putin will respect the limits that the country's 
fledgling constitutional democracy sets on the power of the Russian state. 
The fact that Putin served as a KGB officer should not be considered decisive 
in a country whose towering reform figures of the last two decades came from 
the ranks of the party responsible for the Soviet debacle, including the 
Gulag. Other factors seem far more important. 
* Putin's election mandate. Putin's margin of victory is expected to be 
spectacular, which may, paradoxically, signify a diminished mandate, one 
stemming not from the depth of popular support but from the absence of a 
credible opponent. With the exception of his position on Chechnya, he has 
consistently refused to disclose his intentions as president. He thus bears 
some blame for making the race less of a sport than it ought to have been. 
Even the support offered Putin--every significant political group or 
personality in the country has signed on--conceals a serious liability. By 
filling his bandwagon with whomever has been willing to jump on, Putin has 
cast himself in the image of the proverbial herder of cats. What can the 
Agrarian Party, a state-subsidy addict and, until recently, a coalition 
partner of Russia's dyed-in-the-wool Communists, have in common with the 
Union of the Rightist forces, monetarists and free-marketers bent on 
eliminating subsidies and supporting privatization of land? 
* Political base. Who is Putin counting on? For a man who had never held 
political office, who made his career in a government bureaucracy and who 
wishes to reestablish the authority of the state, the answer is: the state 
bureaucracy, including that branch where Putin began his rise, the state 
security services. Accordingly, he proposes to raise substantially the 
salaries of top- and middle-level government officials, thereby increasing 
their status and making them more immune to pressure and bribes. 
Putin's faith in the possibility of reforming one of the world's 
longest-established corrupt bureaucracies by bureaucratic means gives a clue 
to his curious occasional dance with the Communist Party, for example, his 
support of the speaker of the Duma, Gennady N. Seleznyov, at the expense of 
his free-market allies. Unlike Yeltsin, Putin has no particular ax to grind 
against the Communists. Indeed, he cherishes the hope that they will 
transform themselves into an association along the lines of European social 
democracy and be respectful of individual property rights. Such a 
transformation, according to him, should serve to stabilize Russian society 
and state. 
* The oligarchs. Putin's stated attitude toward the problem of Russia's 
massive concentration of wealth is to maintain the status quo while making 
sure no existing laws are broken. But if Putin's reputation for law and order 
is to survive, he will have to deal with that problem and the natural 
monopolies in a way that will satisfy the country's expectations for a level 
economic playing field. 
* Center and periphery. Step outside the capital, and you will hear that 
the most missed attribute of Soviet power in provincial Russia are the limits 
Moscow used to set on the arbitrary rule of the local bosses. Putin plans to 
restore some federal controls and support local government, too, which might 
check the power of the heads of regions. 
* The press and opposition. Putin's apparent grasp of the importance of 
checks and balances in relations between the center and the regions is not 
echoed in his attitudes toward political opposition and a critical press. 
Russia's public television, ORT, controlled, in effect, by Berezovsky, has 
unleashed a sickeningly crude attack on the competing media empire of 
Vladimir A. Gusinsky, NTV, which has been openly anti-war. For example, in a 
March 23 broadcast, ORT showed Gusinsky's Israeli passport and repeatedly 
played a clip of him breaking bread with a group of Orthodox rabbis. The 
video aimed to raise questions about Gusinsky's allegiance to Russia and the 
legitimacy of his media outlets. Apparently, Putin, who has refused to grant 
interviews to Gusinsky-owned media because of their criticism of his Chechnya 
policy, does not seem to be too unhappy. 
* Who is Putin? The most intriguing aspect of the new political terrain 
is how Putin's personality and outlook will, his reticence notwithstanding, 
dominate Russia's political culture. The contrast with Yeltsin cannot be more 
dramatic. Although both came from a humble background, Putin is decidedly a 
product of urban, modern Russia, indeed of its most Western city and imperial 
capital, St. Petersburg. It is a telling detail that, while serving as deputy 
mayor of Leningrad, as it was then called, Putin replaced the obligatory 
Lenin portrait in his office with one of Peter the Great, the czar who 
created St. Petersburg. 
Yeltsin belonged to the generation of party leaders who were short on 
education and long on administrative experience. Putin, who has a doctorate 
in law from Petersburg State University, speaks several languages, including 
perfect German, and is at home in an intellectual and professional milieu. A 
graduate of a construction engineering college, Yeltsin never learned to 
speak clearly; Putin, a true Petersburger, articulates every word. Yeltsin 
had barely traveled abroad before entering the national political scene. 
Putin has traveled to, lived in and feels comfortable with the West. Unlike 
Yeltsin, whose father and grandfather suffered in the purges and 
collectivization of agriculture under Josef Stalin, and who has firsthand 
experience of Stalinist repression, Putin insists he was only vaguely aware 
of the Gulag and managed somehow not to connect it to the organization that 
recruited him, the KGB. As president, Yeltsin had only a vague sense of how a 
market economy operates. Putin learned it firsthand both in the West and as 
the Leningrad official in charge of foreign investment. Yeltsin liked strong 
drink. Putin, though not a teetotaler, prefers sobriety. 
Disciplined and focused, Putin seems to be cut out for a leader 
attempting a clean sweep. Many a Russian reformer, beginning with Peter the 
Great, has been unmade by this task, too absorbed, alas, to pay due attention 
to plumbing, gas and electricity. 

******

#9
New York Times
March 26, 2000
[for personal use only]
Russia Votes: Will Democracy Win? 
By JACK F. MATLOCK JR.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., a former ambassador to the Soviet Union, is a professor 
at the Institute for Advanced Study and the author of "Autopsy on an Empire." 

PRINCETON, N.J. -- If enough people bother to vote today in Russia, Vladimir 
Putin is expected to be elected president by a wide margin. What then? Is he 
the inscrutable "black box" some observers have described, or even a Russian 
Pinochet determined to establish order by whatever means required? Or will he 
turn out to be a democratic reformer, eager to get on with the changes Russia 
needs to become a just and prosperous society? 
Of course, neither Russians nor outsiders can be certain what Mr. Putin will 
do. But one guide we might consider is Boris Yeltsin's motives in setting him 
on the succession track. 

In a meeting in Moscow last December, President Yeltsin's spokesman told me 
that his boss was determined to go down in history as the person who made the 
restoration of Communism impossible. By the spring of 1999, I was told, Mr. 
Yeltsin had become worried that Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, his 
ostensible successor, had become "too close to the Communists." Mr. Yeltsin 
had therefore dismissed Mr. Primakov and named Sergei Stepashin as prime 
minister, only to be convinced within weeks that Mr. Stepashin probably could 
not win a presidential vote. 

So he had replaced Mr. Stepashin with Mr. Putin, the spokesman told me, since 
he believed Mr. Putin was the man most capable of winning and preventing any 
return to Communist rule or other authoritarianism. Two weeks after the 
Kremlin aide told me this, Mr. Yeltsin resigned, which automatically made Mr. 
Putin the acting president and moved up the election by three months. There 
could hardly have been a more powerful assist to a candidate. 

The aide's explanation may have been tailored for the listener. Nonetheless, 
the important question about Mr. Putin is whether he is capable of keeping 
Russia on the democratic track and devoted to doing so. In that sense, Mr. 
Yeltsin's purported judgment seems well founded. 

Mr. Putin has condemned Communism, saying, "It was a blind alley, far away 
from the mainstream of civilization," and has described his goals as building 
a strong democratic state and encouraging growth. He has warned against 
"restoration of an official state ideology," adding: "Our people have 
accepted such values as freedom of expression, freedom to travel abroad and 
other fundamental political rights and human liberties." 

His rhetoric on democracy has been unequivocal: "History proves all 
dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government, are transitory. Only 
democratic systems are not transitory." He has also said, "The main threat to 
human rights and freedoms emanates from the executive authority." 

His economic prescriptions include encouraging the growth of small and 
medium-sized business and reforming the financial system through realistic 
budgets, tax reform, monetary stability and the creation of "civilized" 
markets. He has called for "integration of the Russian economy into world 
economic structures" and, specifically, for membership in the World Trade 
Organization. 

He insists that Russia must remain a great power, but he has specified that 
"ensuring a high level of people's well-being" is more important than 
military strength. He also emphasizes that Russia has nothing to gain from 
confrontation with the West and that development will be more rapid if Russia 
attracts foreign investment. 

Not only has Mr. Putin said the right things; he has also shown a remarkable 
capacity for political maneuvering. After backing the hastily organized Unity 
Party in the December parliamentary elections, Mr. Putin turned around in 
January and arranged a surprise deal with the Communists that effectively 
prevented Mr. Primakov from being elected speaker. Although many Westerners 
attacked Mr. Putin for reaching out to the Communists, there is no evidence 
he made substantive compromises. The Communist committee chairmen will get 
their BMW's and their dachas while they may finally back the banking and tax 
reforms that they have long blocked. 

Mr. Putin's record is not without blemish. A former K.G.B. official, his 
reliance on former agency colleagues as advisers raises legitimate questions. 
And he has gained much from the support of some super-rich "oligarchs," 
particularly Boris Berezovsky, whose television empire savaged the Primakov 
team before the parliamentary elections. However, Mr. Putin craftily blunted 
criticism on both these points last week by telling ABC's "Nightline" that 
the intelligence officials would be used to crack down on corruption and stem 
the influence of those "who take advantage of their proximity to political, 
governmental and regional leaders." 

Most worrisome is the brutality of the war in Chechnya and the Russian 
government's efforts to block objective news coverage and cover up 
atrocities. But most Russians consider Chechnya unique. Russian popular 
sentiment has long considered Chechnya the most lawless and corrupt region in 
the country. No other province is suspected of sponsoring terrorism in the 
rest of Russia. Many Russians will condone actions there that would not be 
tolerated elsewhere. 

Although Westerners may think the war is the sole cause of Mr. Putin's 
popularity, that is not necessarily the case. During recent trips to Moscow 
and St. Petersburg, most people I spoke to who supported him praised his 
youth, his businesslike manner and his reputation for getting things done. 
Few mentioned Chechnya. 

Westerners have criticized Mr. Putin's reluctance to talk more specifically 
about his plans. (When a Russian magazine asked about his programs, he 
replied, "I won't tell you.") But his reasons are obvious. To carry out his 
goals, he will have to take on some powerful interests. Why provoke their 
opposition before the vote? No Western politician would do so. 

The truth is, the changes in Russian society since 1991, including political 
decentralization, economic privatization and increasing independence of the 
courts, would make it very difficult for any leader to impose Soviet-style 
authoritarian control. 

It is time we stopped making Russia the receptacle of either our dreams or 
our fears. We should congratulate the people on a peaceful and orderly 
transfer of power. 

We shall learn soon enough whether Vladimir Putin's supporters or detractors 
are correct. 

******

#10
FACTBOX-Russian local polls along with Kremlin vote

MOSCOW, March 26 (Reuters) - Several Russian regions will hold gubernatorial 
and legislative elections on Sunday along with the national vote for 
president. 

In these and other regions across the Russian Federation there will also be 
dozens of runoff votes for central parliamentary seats, local legislatures 
and councils. 

Here are details of the main elections: 

ALTAI REGION (CENTRAL SIBERIA, BORDERS KAZAKHSTAN) 

Early election of the head of regional administration (governor) 

Election of the regional Soviet of People's deputies (parliament) 

JEWISH AUTONOMOUS REGION (FAR EAST, BORDERS CHINA) 

Early gubernatorial election 

KHANTY-MANSIYSK AUTONOMOUS DISTRICT (EASTERN SIBERIA) 

Early gubernatorial election 

KIROV REGION (CENTRAL RUSSIA) 

Gubernatorial election 

MURMANSK REGION (ARCTIC, BORDERS FINLAND, NORWAY) 

Gubernatorial election 

SARATOV REGION (CENTRAL RUSSIA, BORDERS KAZAKHSTAN) 

Gubernatorial election 

SVERDLOVSK REGION (CENTRAL URALS) 

Election of the Chamber of Representatives and of a part, by rotation, of the 
Regional Duma of the Legislative Assembly (a bicameral parliament where the 
two chambers have equal status) 

THE REPUBLIC OF TYVA (SOUTHERN SIBERIA, BORDERS MONGOLIA) 

Election of 250 single-constituency members of the Great Khural (republic's 
legislative assembly) 

YAMALO-NENETS AUTONOMOUS DISTRICT (EASTERN SIBERIA) 

Early gubernatorial election 

Early election of the regional State Duma (parliament) 

YAROSLAVL REGION (NORTHEAST OF MOSCOW) 

Election of the regional State Duma (parliament) 

*******

#11
Russians on How They Voted in Presidential Election: Comment

St. Petersburg, Russia, March 26 (Bloomberg) -- The following are comments
from Russian voters as the cast their ballots in today's presidential
election. 

Yekaterina Kirilova, 69, a pensioner: 

``I voted for (Acting President Vladimir) Putin because he will bring order
to Russia and help old people. Putin has already raised pensions and I
expected that he will continue to do so.'' 

Nadezhda Ilienko, 35, a grocery store worker in St. Petersburg: 

``I voted for Putin, not because I like him but because there are no other
decent candidates in the race. He's probably unable to improve life because
Russia's problems are so great. But Putin is a lesser evil than (Communist
party leader Gennady) Zyuganov. We've already lived under communism and I
prefer life the way it is now.'' 

Svetlana Trofimova, 30, a saleswoman in St. Petersburg: 

``I voted for Putin because he's young, energetic and should be able to do
something good for the country. He won't spend his days in the hospital
being treated fro multiple health problems, like the way it was with
Yeltsin. In the end, however, I don't expect much from Putin. Those in
power are far away from our problems and don't understand how we live. The
other candidates just don't have a serious program or are unable to play
the role of a strong leader. Take (Yabloko party leader Grigory) Yavlinsky.
He's been trying for so long to make it in politics, but he never gets
anywhere and has never done anything for the country. The Russian people
just don't believe in what he does.'' 

Shamil Murzayev, 52, a factory worker in St. Petersburg: 

``I voted for Zyuganov because he is for change. Zyuganov is for a social
guarantee so that people will have free medicine, free schooling, and so
that wages will be better and people able to feed and clothe themselves.
Putin is merely the continuation of the old corrupt Yeltsin elite.'' 

Valeria Smirnova, 34, a graduate student in political science: 

``I voted for Yavlinsky because he is the best educated and most
intelligent of all candidates. ``He is a talented economist, and is
Russia's window to protestant Europe. By that I mean he is capable and
willing to build a genuine, western-style, capitalist system in Russia.'' 

*******