DATE=5/12/2000
TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP
TITLE=PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN
NUMBER=6-11818
BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
INTERNET=YES
CONTENT=
INTRO: Russia got a new president this week, as
acting president Vladimir Putin was sworn into the job
he has held for the past several months. The event
has drawn considerable attention in the editorial
columns of the U-S press, and we get a sampling now
from ___________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.
TEXT: Vladimir Putin was sworn in at the ornate great
hall of the Kremlin Sunday [5/7] and then visited
Moscow's main Orthodox Cathedral to receive the
church's blessing.
Our sampling begins in the Midwest, where the Chicago
Tribune discusses the daunting task ahead for
President Putin.
VOICE: Much progress has been made in the decade
since the Soviet Union collapsed and Boris Yeltsin was
elected head of the modern Russian state. But today's
Russia, in the words of a key Putin adviser, is
"stagnated in a semireformed state." [President]
Putin's legacy will be lustrous indeed if he can
complete the reformation. .... Conditions could
hardly be more auspicious as [he] ... begins his
formal term. He is a new president -- of a new
generation -- with a new legislature that appears as
eager as he is to effect change. Russia's economy is
growing and the troublesome military campaign in
Chechnya -- for now at least -- has quieted. ... [Mr.]
Putin ... has a critical window of opportunity to be
bold and must seize it.
TEXT: The Providence Journal has this to say about
Mr. Putin's inaugural address.
VOICE: Mr. Putin made two important points. To begin
with, "for the first time in Russian history, supreme
power in the country is being transferred in the most
democratic and most simple way: through the will of
the people, legally and peacefully." The brutal war
against the Chechens is still being waged. But ... as
a constitutional matter, Mr. Putin has said and done
all the right things. ... His second point was more
equivocal. "The movement towards a free society has
not been easy [and] the establishment of a democratic
state is a process still far from over," he said. ...
"We want our Russia to be a free, prosperous, rich,
strong and civilized country," he said, "a country of
which its citizens are proud and which is respected in
the world." No one can argue with that; nor would
anyone hope for anything but the best in the Putin
years.
TEXT: In Ohio, Cleveland's Plain Dealer is awed by the
huge responsibility Mr. Putin has taken on.
VOICE: It's a responsibility that challenges
comprehension. The Russian Federation spans eleven
time zones, encompassing a land naturally rich in oil,
metals, timber and agricultural potential. It ranks
first in the world with a 99 percent literacy rate,
and boasts a vast number of teachers, engineers and
scientists. Yet its legacy of czarist rule followed
by nearly a century of Communism's command economics
has left its people without an understanding of, or a
legal infrastructure for, the market economy to which
they now so unwillingly must adjust.
TEXT: In California, the San Francisco Examiner was
frustrated by a lack of specifics, beyond the sweeping
generalities.
VOPICE: ... beyond [President] Putin's general
promise to work openly and honestly for effective
government and a better life for ordinary Russians,
there were virtually no specifics about his
contemplated policies. ... A truer test of [Mr.]
Putin's presidential ability will be whether he can
bring order, in a judicially sanctioned way, to the
chaotic, crime-ridden economy -- starting with
effective administration of widely flouted tax laws.
The internal challenge he faces makes the prospect for
a victorious Al Gore or George W. Bush look like a
picnic.
TEXT: In Georgia, the Augusta Chronicle is somewhat
skeptical that the new Russian leader is too much of
an enigma.
VOICE: Foreign policy analysts in government and the
media are poring over [his] inaugural address for some
clues as to where he intends to take his beleaguered
nation ... It's akin to reading tea leaves. We can't
recall a head-of-state of a major country taking
office where so little is known about him.
TEXT: The Los Angeles Times calls Mr. Putin "a mixed
picture," writing:
VOICE: Sunday's inauguration ... [of Mr. Putin was]
the first democratic succession of leadership in the
country's history ...[and is] rich in symbolism and
promise. [Mr.] Putin, a former K-G-B officer, likes
to invoke the word "democracy," but it does not come
naturally to him. At 47, he is younger and more
vigorous than his predecessor, Boris ... Yeltsin....
He is taking charge of a country that has accomplished
a great deal on the democratic front but disappointed
in its economic transformation. ... [Mr.] Putin is
an enigma. Even as a presidential candidate he said
little about his policies or programs. /// OPT ///
...[He] should use the center-right majority in the
Duma, the lower house of parliament, to push for much
needed tax reform and a law clearly establishing the
right of private ownership of land. /// END OPT ///
TEXT: As for the New York Times, it focuses first on
the significance of the inauguration and what a
dramatic change it is for Russia.
VOICE: It completed the first transfer of power from
one freely elected leader to another in more than one-
thousand years of Russian history. After the
ceremony, the energetic new president and his aging
predecessor stepped into the bright sunshine of
Cathedral Square, the very place where generations of
czars appeared after being crowned in the Cathedral of
the Assumption. Little more than a decade ago, the
idea of a democratically chosen president occupying
that ground would have seemed unimaginable.
TEXT: With that comment from the New York Times, we
conclude this sampling of editorial reaction to the
inauguration of Russia's new president, Vladimir
Putin.
NEB/ANG/KL
12-May-2000 14:29 PM EDT (12-May-2000 1829 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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