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Moscow Times
September 15, 2004.
Papers Say Kremlin Mounting a 'Coup'
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer

President Vladimir Putin's plan to fight terrorism by seeking stronger Kremlin control over society is "a coup" that shows "disregard for the Constitution," Russian newspapers said Tuesday.

Western countries voiced similar concerns over what they saw as a step back from democracy.

"Putin Disregards the Constitution" declared a front-page headline in Kommersant, which like other newspapers dedicated their front pages to articles about Putin's announcement Monday to get rid of the popular vote for regional leaders and to change the way the State Duma is elected.

Independent State Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov told Kommersant that the move to abandon the popular vote for regional leaders runs counter to the Constitution, citing a Constitutional Court ruling from 1996.

But Vladimir Tumanov, chairman of the Constitutional Court at the time, told the newspaper that the Constitution did not directly determine how local elections should be held and that the 1996 ruling could be set aside in the interests of national security.

Kommersant, which is controlled by businessman and Putin critic Boris Berezovsky, concluded in a commentary that the president's plans would be "ineffective" and change hardly anything in practice.

"The presidential administration has so tightly controlled the election process that a victory by a candidate it does not favor has become an exceptional phenomenon," it said.

Stanislav Belkovsky, an analyst who was until recently thought to be close to a group of former security officers in Putin's entourage, called the proposals "an anti-federation coup," Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported.

"I think it's the biggest mistake of Putin's presidency," he said.

The popular daily Moskovsky Komsomolets, which often reflects views close to the Moscow city government, commented: "Our political system was too advanced for our society. Russia isn't yet grown up enough for democracy. Our society's level of development goes better with dictatorship."

The generally pro-government Izvestia daily supported the plans, saying it reflected both the drive to make the state more efficient and disillusionment with democracy. "Over the 15 years of its new life civil society in Russia hasn't awakened," the newspaper said, criticizing popular elections as competitions between wealthy interest groups or senseless rhetorical battles.

A low level of civil society and Putin's distrust of local authorities had led the president to take "an extreme step: finally to take responsibility himself for events in the country," Izvestia said.

Putin used the recent terrorist attacks as a pretext to introduce these measures, "which had long been brewing in the Kremlin's offices," the newspaper said.

The comment appeared to be in line with recent changes at Izvestia. Its editor, Raf Shakirov, resigned last week after criticism of the newspaper's coverage of the Beslan crisis by its publisher, Prof-Media, which is headed by pro-Kremlin magnate Vladimir Potanin.

State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, who heads the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, backed Putin's ideas, saying Tuesday that the proposed changes to scrap individual races in favor of party races in Duma elections would "really strengthen the parties and raise their responsibility before the voters."

Gryzlov said the changes to how regional leaders are picked would help "ensure citizens' security and the unity of the country."

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday that he had concerns about Putin's plan, which he described as a move away from democracy.

"We understand the need to fight against terrorism ... but in an attempt to go after terrorists [you have] to make sure that you don't move in a direction that takes you away from the democratic reforms or the democratic process," he told Reuters.

The European Union said it was watching the developments closely.

"Obviously this is an internal affair for Russia, but ... all of us who are faced with the challenge of tackling the modern evil of terrorism have to at the same time pay due respect to democracy and human rights," Emma Udwin, foreign affairs spokeswoman for the European Commission, told reporters.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the European Parliament's Greens, said Russia was using an "annihilation policy" to solve the conflict over Chechnya.

"Russia is going back to a tsarist dictatorship for the fight against terror," he told a news conference, adding that Moscow should start talks with Chechen rebel leaders to solve the conflict politically, Reuters reported.

But the leader of the largest political group in the parliament, Hans-Gert Pottering of the conservative European People's Party, said it was too early to talk politics when so many lives had been lost in the Beslan hostage-taking. "The terrorists in Beslan did a great disservice to the Chechens," he told reporters. "We want to completely denounce what happened."

More than 330 hostages, including many children, died in the chaotic battle for the school after attackers took about 1,200 people hostage on Sept. 1. In the previous week, 99 people were killed in two plane crashes and a metro bombing blamed on Chechen separatists.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin on Tuesday reaffirmed the Cabinet's plan to spend 157 billion rubles ($5.4 billion) on security and defense in 2005, a considerable increase from 2004.