DATE=12/23/1999
TYPE=WORLD OPINION ROUNDUP
TITLE=RUSSIA'S PARLIAMENTARY ELCTION
NUMBER=6-11609
BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS
TELEPHONE=619-3335
CONTENT=
INTRO: One of the major political events of the past
week was Sunday's Russian election in which the
Communist party lost support, especially among its
allies. The center parties did better, as voters
appeared to reject the extremes of the political
spectrum. Reaction continues to flow in from the
world's press, and we have a sampling now from
_____________ in this week's World Opinion Roundup.
INTRO: Braving bitter cold in much of the nation, at
least sixty percent of Russian voters turned out for
the nation's third open election, which was noted in
many U-S papers as an achievement in and of itself.
The center party supported by Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin, architect of the brutal Chechen war, did very
well, and together with other allied parties, may hold
the balance of power in the Duma, or lower house of
parliament.
Around the world, there was divided opinion on how to
interpret the results. Most papers tended to view the
balloting as slightly more favorable than negative.
We begin our sampling in Moscow, where Noviye
Izvestiya suggests:
VOICE: The United States is ready to extend the truce
on the Chechnya information front, which was
introduced for the period of elections to the Duma.
That is the impression the meetings of Deputy
Secretary of State Strobe Talbott in Moscow yesterday
[12/22] made on their participants. Next year, with
both Russia and the United States facing elections,
the current complications between them may seem non-
existent.
TEXT: Across town, Segodnya ran this assessment of
how the war affected the vote:
VOICE: Moscow, really, has no choice as far as a
course of action in Chechnya goes, and no amount of
pressure can help it. The outcome of the
parliamentary elections is stark testimony to that.
The war party came out the big winner, backed by an
overwhelming majority of voters. No sanctions or
other threats can change that - they will only anger
the public.
TEXT: A somewhat different view of post-election
relations between the United States and Russia is
given in Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
VOICE: For all their assurances these past two days
that they don't intend to slide down into
confrontation, Russia and the United States have been
doing exactly that. Yesterday [12/22] [Mr. Talbott
was quite convincing when he insisted that the U-S
leadership did not want to spoil its relations with
Moscow, not even over Chechnya. Against that
backdrop, the Ex-Im [Export-Import] Bank's decision to
suspend loan guarantees for the TNK (petroleum)
company does not seem quite logical.
TEXT: Turning to Western Europe, and to England, the
Times of London also sees the deep connection between
the parties that gained and the war in the Caucasus.
VOICE: The electoral victory for the pro-Kremlin
parties has obviously been by the way . the winners'
hands have been steeped in Chechen blood. The Russian
people's bloodthirsty relish for the wholesale
slaughter of the Chechens has offered another salutary
reminder on the brink of the millennium that human
nature, at least in some parts of the world, has
changed little since the time of Ivan the Terrible. .
But despite the Orwellian atmosphere in which this
election unfortunately had to be conducted, the
outcome has been hailed in the West as another great
milestone on Russia's road to truce, democracy,
freedom and capitalism.
TEXT: Taking a less optimistic view, The Evening
Standard commented:
VOICE: For all the corruption and moral squalor that
beset Russian politics, the election result was
probably the best the West could hope for . the most
encouraging thing about the Russian elections is that
they happened at all.
TEXT: Farther east, Die Presse in Vienna, Austria,
had this pessimistic view:
VOICE: This Duma election has not changed the rotten,
corrupt, inefficient Russian leadership structures at
all. The rhetoric may change a little - which will be
gratefully noted by Western governments and business
people.
TEXT: In neighboring Italy, Milan's Corriere della
Sera stressed:
VOICE: Prime Minister Putin has further strengthened
his position as a result of the recent elections . He
can now calmly devote himself to completing the
operation in Chechnya, and later deal with the other
Russian problems in view of the presidential elections
in June.
TEXT: Working our way North, in Paris, France's Le
Nouvel Observateur takes the view of its Austrian
counterpart.
VOICE: The situation in Russia is dramatic . the
Kremlin is discredited and everyone admits the country
needs another policy, but few expect a change from an
election . [Prime Minister] Putin's popularity
certainly played a great role, but the fraud was
decisive . During this rather nauseating campaign led
by the Russian state, all rules .(were) violated.
Seldom did we see the state television broadcast so
many slanders against men deprived of a right to reply
. The hundred thousand Americans living in Moscow
cannot ignore the abyss [President] Yeltsin has thrown
his country into, and how he manipulates the electoral
process .
TEXT: In Poland, where suspicion of Russia is a long
tradition, Warsaw's Nasz Dziennik suggests:
VOICE: What is upsetting are the growing chauvinist
trends among the Russians. The outcome of Sunday's
elections evidently demonstrated that the imperial
spirit is reborn in the Russian community.
TEXT: Moving to Asia, we read this in India's
Hindustan Times from New Delhi:
VOICE: The major gains made by centrist parties in
Russia's parliamentary elections . seem to have
overshadowed the remarkable fact that the Communists
have turned in their best ever showing at the
hustings. [EDS: in rural areas] this spells both bad
news and good news for President Boris Yeltsin. The
bad news, of course, is that many of the 107-million
Russians who were eligible to vote did not really seem
to mind a Red revival in the country . These elections
were undoubtedly influenced by Russia's military
campaign in Chechnya and, in a sense, the centrists
have ridden to the poll victory astride the war
effort.
TEXT: In neighboring Pakistan, the Urdu-language
Nawa-I-Waqt in Lahore is much more upset at the
violence of the Chechen victory, than the election
results.
VOICE: Addressing a meeting in Lahore, a Chechen
representative has rightly complained that the O-I-C
[Organization of Islamic Countries] has not played its
proper role to protect the Chechens from Russian
atrocities. . if the entire Muslim world takes a
uniform stance, and seeks help from the United States
and Europe, it can prevent Russian aggression.
TEXT: To the Middle East now, and this, from one of
Israel's largest dailies, Maariv:
VOICE: The main beneficiaries from the impressive
victory of the centrist parties, in particular the
unity Party, in the Russian elections are President
Boris Yeltsin and the man believed to be his heir-
apparent . Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the real
force behind the unity Party. The Chechen war, of
which [Prime minister] Putin is the chief engineer,
has made the former K-G-B member popular. The
Russian public supports the war. Pre-election
propaganda that presented the opponents to the war as
traitors has proved to be very effective. . The
conduct of the war . has become a political asset .
TEXT: In this hemisphere, Canada's Toronto Star
comments:
VOICE: Russia's new parliament will be more pro-
government, nationalist and capitalist than the
outgoing one. It will also be younger . [The]
strengthening of the center at the expense of the
ideological left and the extreme right is not a bad
result, given the wartime flavor of this campaign.
Russia's democracy is maturing nicely.
TEXT: And lastly, from Mexico, where Mexico City's
Excelsior exclaims:
VOICE: Dictators do not live out of peace, but of war
. The war against Chechnya has placed [Mr.] Yeltsin's
Prime Minister Putin's popularity at the top . Both
have won because of their "Czarist" war against
Chechnya and the nations of the Caucasus. This was
the flag they successfully wrapped themselves with ..
TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of
comment from around the globe on Russia's
parliamentary election.
NEB/ANG/JP
23-Dec-1999 18:08 PM EDT (23-Dec-1999 2308 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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