DATE=12/22/1999
TYPE=ON THE LINE
TITLE=ON THE LINE: RUSSIA AFTER THE ELECTIONS
NUMBER=1-00807
EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY - 619-0037
CONTENT=
THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE
Anncr: On the Line - a discussion of United
States policy and contemporary issues. This week,
"Russia After the Elections" Here is your host,
Robert Reilly.
Host: Hello and welcome to On the Line.
Russians went to the polls last week to elect
representatives to the Duma, or parliament. The
results seem to have loosened the grip of the
Communist Party, though the Communists retained
the single largest share of seats. Unity, a
centrist alliance backing Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin, came in a close second. In fact,
for the first time, it appears that a centrist
coalition could exercise a plurality or even a
majority in the Duma.
Joining me today to discuss the Russian elections
are three experts. Nelson Ledsky is the director
of programs for Eurasia at the National Democratic
Institute for International affairs. Paul Goble is
communications director of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty. And Herman Pirchner is president of the
American Foreign Policy Council. Welcome to the
program.
Mr. Ledsky, before we remark upon how the shift
within the Duma may affect the future of Russia,
what about the conduct of the election itself?
Ledsky: These were not, by my standards at least,
and I think by most people's standards, very good
elections. The run-up to the election was marred
by heavy mud-slinging, and there was heavy mud.
Host: Unlike other democracies?
Ledsky: Unlike other democracies and unlike
previous Russian elections. Very few of the
candidates had the opportunity to present their
views to the public. The Kremlin and Kremlin
figures had the lion's share of press play,
dominated the pre-electoral period. And I would
say myself that this election was less free, less
fair than previous Duma elections and previous
presidential elections in Russia.
Host: That's interesting. Paul Goble, Gary
Kasparov, the famous Russian chess master and
political commentator, wrote in The Wall Street
Journal that these are probably the fairest
elections that Russia has had for the Duma.
Goble: I think that we have to distinguish
between the run up to the elections and the way in
which they were conducted on the day of the
elections. In the run-up, there was a great deal
of Kremlin pressure on the media, a lot of mud-
slinging, as Nelson says, and it was very ugly and
there was clearly an effort by the party in power
to make sure it won. On the day of the elections,
however, the reporting was that there were very
few violations. It's important to remember that
Russia's own central election commission commented
that, before the day of the elections, things had
not been too good. There had been large numbers of
complaints. But on the day of the elections, they
saw very few problems compared to earlier years.
So I think it is important to make the distinction
between the election campaign, which certainly was
not fair and free, and the day of the elections,
the actual conduct of the voting, which was not
too bad.
Host: So one can rely today in Russia, Herman
Pirchner, on election votes being counted
reliably, no one stuffing the ballot boxes, and
getting an accurate count?
Pirchner: I think that is a slight exaggeration,
but it is within tolerable limits and maybe not
unlike the conditions in some American cities
earlier this century.
Host: That's fair enough. Let us get on to that
larger topic. We are hearing from a number of
reformers in Russia that this is a peaceful
revolution. Other commentators are saying it is
simply the endorsement of a brutal war in
Chechnya. What do you think?
Ledsky: It is a little bit of both. I think there
is no question that the war in Chechnya had a
great impact on the results last Sunday. And I
think the war in Chechnya tilted the electoral
balance toward nationalists and toward centrists
who were endorsing the war and away from reformers
and perhaps away from Communists.
Host: But the Communists are the new
nationalists, aren't they?
Ledsky: I think one has to be careful there with
labels. One has to be careful about who is called
a nationalist and who is called a centrist and who
is called a revolutionary. And I do not think this
was a revolutionary election. I do not think it
was a very startling election in terms of results,
except as an endorsement of a very brutal, a very
unfortunate war effort which the Russian
government has mounted.
Host: Before commenting on what the results
mean, let's first say what those results were.
Pirchner: The Communist Party share of the Duma
seats went down from thirty-four percent in 1995
to about twenty-five percent this time. They fared
even worse when you look at their allies who were
not reelected. Last time, other communist parties
could pair with the Communist party to have forty-
two percent of the vote, versus the combined
Communist vote in the Duma this time at twenty-
four percent. Centrist parties are up to thirty-
three percent from fourteen. Democratic parties
are down to eleven from fifteen percent. And maybe
the most important statistic, you have a full
twenty-five percent of the Duma that were elected
as independents.
Host: Then it sounds as if it might be possible
for a non-Communist or anti-Communist majority to
be formed.
Pirchner: I think it is possible but not
inevitable because we do not know where those
independents will line up.
Host: Paul Goble, why is that not a peaceful
revolution, contrary to what Mr. Ledsky said?
Goble: First off, Unity, the party of power, the
party of the prime minister, is a very mixed bag.
Its leaders have been unable to specify that they
agree on anything except supporting the prime
minister and supporting the war in Chechnya. They
are likely to break apart. They are unlikely to
show much party discipline. Moreover, the leader
of one of the other parties that would be in the
centrist faction, Mr. [Yevgeny] Primakov, has no
reason to be terribly interested in helping Mr.
Putin in the short term because he wants to defeat
Putin in the race for president of Russia next
year. So I think that, while you can theoretically
construct a working majority for reform, the
likelihood of that happening in the next year or
two, or at least before that next presidential
elections, is very low indeed. So I think the
discussion that this is a revolutionary election
is a vast overstatement of what has happened.
Host: Do you agree with that?
Ledsky: I do very much. I think we have had an
election of great significance, but hardly a
revolution. And what I think is important is that
this is the third rather normal election for a
parliament in a decade. And the very normalcy and
lack of revolutionary character is what ought to
be stressed. As for the categories in which the
various parties competed and won should be put, I
think that is a very big question. My own reading
of the results is that the democrats or the
reformers did very well. They did better than
Herman indicated. I think they can be considered
to have done somewhere around twenty to twenty-
five percent of the vote. There will now be two
small but very significant reformist blocs in the
parliament, perhaps a third if you count former
prime minister [Victor] Chernomyrdin with his
seven to ten seats, which he will win. I think the
democrats have substantially strengthened
themselves and I think they will be far more
influential than they were in the last parliament.
And who is in the centrist category? There is
where they big question mark is.
Host: That sounds like a hedged peaceful
revolution.
Ledsky: No, no because this parliament is not
going to be able to exercise the authority, the
power that you would expect a parliament to be
able to exercise, whatever its makeup.
Host: Herman Pirchner, you have not had a chance
to comment on the meaning of the results you gave.
Pirchner: First, I have to disagree about the
strength of the democratic forces. I would like to
say that they are stronger, but [Grigory]
Yavlinsky had ten percent of the seats in the last
parliament. He has five percent now. In the last
parliament, democratic splinter groups had five
percent. They have nothing now. So the total
democratic vote, among parties I think we would
agree are democratic, is less by seats in this
parliament. The meaning of the election, I do not
know that I have serious disagreements with either
Nelson or Paul on it, other than to say that I
think, until we see how many of the unknown people
line up and vote, we cannot know for sure. You
have a quarter of your parliament that is
independent and are largely unknown personalities.
We do not know how they are going to vote.
Goble: And more than that, three of the parties,
which are represented in the parliament this time,
did not exist a year ago. These are all new
creations. The amount of agreement that exists
within those parties is very difficult to gauge.
And the likelihood that they will reform, as we
move toward the presidential race in the year
2000, makes it very difficult to say: this is a
party; it will vote this way; therefore we can
count these people in any particular camp well in
advance of a vote.
Host: I understand that point. And it is
certainly extraordinary that Unity, a party that
has existed for only three months, did this well.
However, what about the larger point that, since
the change in Russia in 1991, the president, for
all the power he has, has been unable to institute
real tax reform, has been unable to pass laws
allowing true land ownership. All of this because
the Communist bloc of deputies has repeatedly
blocked such reforms and such legislation. Now at
the very least, wouldn't you expect, with the
Communists in opposition, that the prime minister
or the president could get through some
fundamental economic reforms?
Goble: There is certainly a better chance now of
that happening than there was before this
election, a better chance, but not a certainty. An
awful lot of the people who are in these new
umbrella parties are opposed to land reform, are
opposed to those economic changes. One of the
things is that we have three different issues, if
you will, that people can take positions on: how
much they are for democracy; how much they are for
economic reform; and how nationalist they are.
And the combinations of those three vary all over
the place. You have some people who are
nationalists and for economic reform. Some people
who are nationalist oppose economic reform. Some
people who are for economic reform oppose
democracy, and you can work out all the
permutations of that. As a result, if you look at
the speeches in Unity, forget the leadership - the
people in Unity - you are not going to be able to
find a majority in Unity that is in favor of land
reform just because the prime minister is in favor
of it. There is going to be real politicking to
get anything like that through, even with the
Unity group.
Host: So what was the Unity vote? What did that
represent?
Ledsky: It represented a vote of support for the
prime minister of Russia and a vote of support for
the war effort. And I do not think you can read
much more into it than that. And I think the
notion that we have not seen political and
economic reform in Russia because of the makeup of
the parliament is also a dubious assumption. Much
of the reason you have the Russia today that you
have is because of the nature of the executive,
its lack of authority, its lack of decisiveness,
its inability to carryout the reforms that it
itself annunciates. So, you had a weak executive;
you have had an ineffectual central government
over the course of the last decade. And that, more
than the makeup of the parliament, explains where
Russia is at the present moment.
Host: Do you agree with that?
Goble: I think that is certainly true. I think
what we have seen is the decay of almost all
governing institutions, including a parliament.
This is one more step in a process that is going
to take a very long time of creating a government
in Russia.
Host: Is this a step in the right direction in
that process?
Goble: Well, unfortunately, I am a little less
optimistic because I think this vote for Unity is
explicitly about Chechnya and a vicious
nationalist war. And I think that that may set
Russia back. I think that the nationalism that is
inherent in creating Unity support for Putin has a
very dangerous shadow on the future of what Putin
may do to try to build authority as he tries to
become president of Russia.
Host: Herman Pirchner, this statement by Mr.
Ledsky that there has been a weak executive -
everyone complained about the new Russian
constitution because of all the power that vested
in the executive.
Pirchner: The question is not whether the weak
executive was responsible in part for lack of
reform. I agree with Nelson. The question is: is
it the institution, is it the office, or is it a
very sick President Yeltsin? Would an energetic
president, using the constitutional powers of the
president, be able to push through reforms or not?
Host: Since you said, Mr. Ledsky, that this vote
was for Prime Minister Putin, who exactly is he
and why are people supporting him? A recent
publication in St Petersburg described him as the
man without a face.
Ledsky: I think nobody knows the answer to that
question. Certainly not I. I think the voters were
presented with an image of a strong leader who is
determined to carry out a nationalist policy and
they voted for that individual on the assumption
that he was a strong leader and was capable of
carrying out a strong nationalist policy and
concluding the war successfully in Chechnya.
Whether any of that is realistic or not, I do not
know. I do not think that any Russian who voted
for the Unity group knows. You have to remember,
however, that, when I said "what did the Unity
vote signify?" and I answered that "it signified
support for the war and support for the prime
minister," only twenty-five percent of the Russian
people voted for the prime minister and voted for
the war.
Host: What do you mean by that?
Ledsky: Seventy-five percent of the vote went to
other parties, other candidates.
Host: But some of those support the war.
Goble: Only one did not.
Ledsky: Only Yabloko did not support the war, or
only supported the war to a lesser extent than the
others. It is impossible to know what will happen
to that vote. What will happen to that sentiment?
It depends on the course of the war; it depends on
what the government does over the course of the
next few months.
Host: Herman Pirchner, you mentioned a weak
executive in the person of a sick President Boris
Yeltsin. Is Vladimir Putin the next president? Was
this like the pre-primary vote? Is it a gauge of
his prospects as a presidential candidate next
summer?
Pirchner: Democratic societies have a history of
picking new presidents who most exemplify the
traits deficient in the previous president.
Host: Is Russia a democratic society?
Pirchner: Yes. Therefore, an energetic, active
young Putin is contrasted very favorably with a
very sick, tired Yeltsin who could not solve the
Chechen problem. I think that was his appeal.
Goble: There is another analogy from democratic
societies that may be relevant as well.
Democracies tend to support the man in charge
during a war. And as soon as the war is over, win
or lose, that person is often cast aside. And I
think that if the Chechen war goes badly, which I
personally believe it will, I think that Mr. Putin
is going to have a very rough next year. I think
that a lot of people who supported him because he
looked like he was winning will turn on him in a
minute if the war goes sour.
Host: But you also implied that if it goes well
he'd suffer.
Goble: If it goes well, I think that there are
lots of people who will say, yes, this man fought
a war, but, as Mr. Primakov has pointed out, Mr.
Putin has failed utterly to come up with a policy
about anything else except fighting the war. And I
think that the people will be looking to other
interests -- the seventy-five percent, as Nelson
said, who voted for other parties. So I do not
think this guarantees Putin's election at all.
Pirchner: I agree and the Kremlin has similar
thoughts. There is a whole "B" team that is run by
some high level Yeltsin personnel that is
preparing [former prime minister Sergei] Stepashin
to run if Putin collapses because of Chechnya.
Host: I'm afraid that's all the time we have
this week. I would like to thank our guests --
Nelson Ledsky from the National Democratic
Institute for International Affairs; Paul Goble
from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; and Herman
Pirchner from the American Foreign Policy Council
-- for joining me to discuss the results of the
elections in Russia. This is Robert Reilly for On
the Line.
Anncr: You've been listening to "On the Line" - a
discussion of United States policies and
contemporary issues. This is --------.
22-Dec-1999 12:09 PM EDT (22-Dec-1999 1709 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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