17,02 The seizure of the school in Beslan. September 1.
Photo: Valery Melnikov
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Denying the Mileage
In 2004, the presidential elections were to become the main event in the sphere of home politics. However, the September tragedy in Beslan not only overshadowed all other events but actually made Vladimir Putin admit that the majority of the reforms implemented by him during the first four years in power were a failure.
The 2004 presidential elections promised to be epochal not just because of Putin's victory (even his opponents had no doubts about it) but also as an important landmark in the country's development. If in the course of his first term in office Putin had to keep in mind that he would have to be re-elected for the second term, after March 14, 2004 he could launch radical reforms and did not have to worry about the rating as many experts thought. Those reforms would have made possible the long-awaited leap in Russia.
However, during the first month after his inauguration in May Putin had no chance to start working on radical reforms. And then there were the fighters' attack against Ingushetia, the explosions of two aircraft, the terrorist act at the Rizhskaya metro station and Beslan. After that Putin announced another reform of the power – in essence the radical reconsideration of the transformations, which had been implemented by him during the first year in the office of the president. If the majority of Putin's reforms in 2000 envisaged a consistent rejection of “Yeltsin's heritage”, in the last three months of 2004 Vladimir Putin's activity actually boiled down to his struggle against himself of the 2000-year pattern.
The Beslan Turning Point
The events in Beslan were probably the heaviest blow delivered to Vladimir Putin in all the years of his presidency. He came to power mostly thanks to the short victorious war, which the second Chechen campaign promised to be at the beginning. However, the Chechen issue was the legacy of the “old regime” and not his, Putin's, personal problem. Besides, right after his victory in the 2000 elections it seemed as though the situation in the rebellious republic was improving steadily: large-scale operations were completed; the special services managed to catch or destroy a number of prominent terrorists; in the spring of 2003, the Chechen enthusiastically supported the new Constitution of the republic, which was a surprise even for the Kremlin. The Constitution confirmed Chechnya's status as a subject of the RF. In the autumn of the same year, they elected former mufti Akhmad Kadyrov as their president.
Even the fighters capturing the Theatre Center in Dubrovka in October 2002 failed to change Putin's attitude towards Chechnya as “somebody else's problem”. It seemed as though the conjurations about the excellent assault (in the course of which “only” 130 out of 800 hostages died), which one could hear from the officials at that time, affected not so much the wide public towards which they were addressed but the leadership of Russia. This self-hypnosis prevented the authorities from making the conclusion, which suggested itself to them: the terrorists managed to capture the theatre in the center of the far-away Moscow and nobody hampered them, they will surely have enough strength to do something of the kind in the regions neighboring on Chechnya.
After Beslan the pleasant delusion evaporated and Vladimir Putin began perceiving the Chechen issue as “his problem”. Neither Nord-Ost nor the murder of Akhmad Kadyrov in the May of 2004 pushed Putin in the direction of radical restructuring of the whole system of state power. Whereas Beslan has resulted in the reform of the kind. It was launched under the slogan of the need to step up the struggle against terrorism. Judging by the fact that Putin held these reforms with an iron fist paying no special attention to the criticism from the West or to the objections voiced by the regional leaders, he must have perceived the events in Beslan as a personal challenge. He thought he had the right to respond taking nobody's interests into account.
It is a different thing that right away the method chosen by the president to fight terror generated big doubts. The main reforms announced in Putin's keynote speech at an expanded government session on September 13 had little to do with real struggle against terrorism. However, those reforms actually cancelled everything that had been done by him earlier.
Governors' Counter-revolution
The transfer from the national elections of governors to the practice of their appointment has become the most outstanding “anti-terrorist” reform of 2004. The rejection of perhaps the key democratic achievement of Yeltsin's epoch turned out to be all the more unexpected because the problem of “governors taking liberties” seemed to have been dealt with once and for all as far back as 2000. Back then the president at first appointed supervisors for the regional leaders – his presidential representatives in federal districts, then he cast the governors out from the Federation Council depriving them of parliamentary immunity which this status envisaged, and on top of it all he introduced the norm into the legislation, according to which, the heads of the regions could be removed from office in case they violated federal laws.
This structure of relations between the center and the regions guaranteed the president against the new “parade of sovereignties”, against the emergence of unpredictable leaders in the regions: the levers the Kremlin had were quite sufficient to guarantee loyalty on the part of the acting heads of regions and - if need be - to bring to power in the regions the candidates that the center needed. Of course certain effort had to be exerted because Moscow's choice had to be confirmed by the will of the voters. However, as the experience of governor elections in 2000-2002 demonstrated, this effort almost always resulted in success.
Nevertheless, in September 2004, Putin decided to give up even the semblance of free elections and to transfer to the practice of approving governors by regional parliaments on the suggestion of the president. In words of one syllable this means direct appointment by the Kremlin. It is clear that this measure has nothing to do with stepping up the struggle against terrorism: it is unlikely that the president of North Ossetia could have prevented the seizure of the school in Beslan had he been appointed by the president of the RF and not elected by a popular vote. This procedure will allow the Kremlin not to be distracted by various details (like pushing through the candidates it needs in the governor elections) and to dedicate undivided attention to the task, which it views as the main one at present – the mobilization of the whole society for the war declared to Russia by the terrorists.
However, some results of the expiring year suggest that in many respects the president was compelled to transfer to the practice of appointing regional leaders. This proves that the 2000 federative reform has failed to bring the expected result. Even before Beslan a tendency that was most unpleasant for the Kremlin was disclosed in the political preferences demonstrated by the Russians: more and more often in governor elections the voters refused to give their votes for the candidates supported by the Kremlin and the pro-presidential United Russia and voted for the politicians who represented the “third force”.
This was what happened in the Altai region. It was humorist-performer Mikhail Evdokimov that got the upper hand over governor Alexander Surikov who ran for the office for the third time. This was a sensation. In the Arkhangelsk region the local businessman, Nikolay Kiselev, beat governor Anatoly Efremov who ran for the office for the third time. In the Ryazan region the nominee of the Rodina bloc ex-commander of Russia's airborne forces, Georgy Shpak, left behind United Russia's candidate, former intelligence officer Igor Morozov. Already in December, when the State Duma adopted the law on the new order of electing governors, this tendency was confirmed in the Pskov region: the head of the region, Evgeny Mikhailov, who was supported by the Kremlin and United Russia lost against former State Duma deputy businessman Mikhail Kuznetsov.
Though orally the regional leaders kept confirming their loyalty to the federal center, they could hardly be viewed as being totally loyal to the Kremlin. Thus the presidential circle could not be sure that such governors would guarantee the necessary result in the 2008 presidential elections (on the results of which the power in the country had to be transferred into the hands of Vladimir Putin's successor). This was why the transfer to the practice of appointing governors was actually the only measure, which made it possible for Putin not to worry about the elections' outcome. And if the present president decides to change the Constitution in order to extend the term of his authorities he would need the support organized by the loyal governors even more.
The Party Reform
Another reform announced by Vladimir Putin on September 13 – the transfer to the practice of elections to the State Duma exclusively on party lists – also testifies to the fact that the radical reforms launched by the Kremlin at the end of 2000 have failed to bring the desired results.
Back then many in the circle of the president thought that it was sufficient to determine the minimal number of party members as 10 thousand people, to order that parties have divisions in more than half of the subjects of the RF and to oblige them to participate in the elections of all levels. They thought those measures would cut the number of parties in the country to a dozen, which would easily build into the “few-party system” (something that even Boris Yeltsin used to dream of). However, it turned out that the number of parties that had complied with the requirements of the new law was more than forty. As for the state financing, which was promised to them, it failed to push them in the direction of universal “constructive cooperation” with the authorities.
However, thanks to the effort on the part of the Kremlin political technologists and state TV channels the elections to the State Duma in December 2003 brought the desired result: United Russia made spectacular gains and those who criticized the ruling regime either failed to get into the Duma (Yabloko and SPS) or got an insignificant minority there (the CPRF). This made it possible to shape a stable constitutional majority in the lower chamber that duly hammers out any laws, which the executive power needs.
The autumn elections to the regional parliaments apparently brought no satisfaction to the Kremlin though. In accordance with the 2000-2001 party reform at least half of the deputies were elected on party lists. However, United Russia got less than it had in the 2003 parliamentary elections and the support for the left parties considerably increased. This happened practically in all subjects of the RF. Although those elections took place already after Putin had made public the plan of the coming reforms, the presidential administration (which regularly receives the results of secret sociological research) must have been informed about the changes in the sentiments of the voters which had begun to show as far back as the past summer. It was not an accident that the amendment to the Law on Political Parties was submitted to the Duma right at that time. According to the amendment, the minimal number of members had to be brought up to 50 thousand. Already after Beslan it was complemented by the new edition of the Law on Election of Deputies to the State Duma, which envisaged the transfer to the practice of elections exclusively on party lists.
It was as far back as the May of 2004 that the head of the Central Election Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov, first spoke about the expediency of canceling elections to the State Duma in single-mandate constituencies and transferring to elections solely on the party-list basis. However, it was in September that the leadership became obsessed with this idea. Then Putin named it among other measures meant to reinforce the power vertical. If in May this suggestion seemed to be just a way of considerably simplifying the procedure of forming the lower chamber of the parliament (it is much easier to organize the passing into the Duma of 3-4 parties the Kremlin needs than to push through two hundred of their candidates in single-mandate constituencies), in September against the background of the initiative on appointing the governors this idea was perceived in an absolutely new light. Now the Russians are deprived of the right to personally vote not only for the head of their region but also for a specific State Duma deputy. According to the Law on the Election of Deputies, non-party candidates can be included into party lists though. However, it will be much more difficult for a Russian citizen who is not a member of a party to get included into a party list than to nominate their candidature for a deputy seat.
The fact that the draft law on the Public Chamber has been submitted to the State Duma can be viewed as proof of the failure of the reforms that were launched in 2000. Vladimir Putin referred this law to the category of measures on struggle against terrorism. On the one hand this body should contribute to the development of the civil society. On the other hand, the method of shaping the Public Chamber proves that the goals on the development of the civil society and establishing its interaction with state institutions (which were listed in the presidential Address to the Federal Assembly in 2000) have remained nothing but desires. The thing is that the members of this Chamber will be appointed either by the president or by the representatives of public organizations selected by him. This means that this whole body, which formally represents the interests of average citizens, will in reality be shaped from “above”. In which way will this “third chamber” differ from the first two then (Federation Council and State Duma) that are shaped practically at the dictation of the Kremlin?
The Chechen Issue
Strange as it might seem but these radical reforms in the whole of Russia, which have been triggered off by the situation in Chechnya, have had a much more modest effect upon the latter than upon the rest of the country. Although the Kremlin did have to exert significant effort to keep up stability in this region.
Actually the year 2004 was to become the final one in the process of political settlement in Chechnya. It was planned that after the referendum on the new Chechen Constitution (spring, 2003) and the election of Akhmad Kadyrov as the president of the republic (autumn, 2003) the process of political settlement would be finished in 2004. The Kremlin thought that this kind of Chechnya – with a new Constitution, with a legitimately elected president and parliament – could be boldly produced to the West. The thing was that since the beginning of the second Chechen campaign the West had been criticizing Russia for using military – not political – methods to resolve the Chechen problem.
However, the plans of the federal authorities were not to be. On May 9, as a result of a terrorist act at the Dinamo stadium in Grozny where the Victory Day parade was taking place Akhmad Kadyrov died. This explosion put the clock back for the Kremlin in the solution of the Chechen problem. It became obvious that the reports of the Russian leadership, according to which, the military part of the operation in Chechnya had been successfully completed and there was practically nobody to fight on the side of the separatists (the number of reports, according to which, Aslan Maskhadov's advocates were siding with the federal troops, was the largest in the spring of this year) were at least premature. Right after the terrorist act once again in Russia they began speaking about the need to introduce the state of emergency in Chechnya. In particular, to introduce direct presidential rule in the republic and to appoint somebody who would possess the fullness of military and civil authorities as the special representative of Moscow. This suggestion came from the head of the Rodina Duma faction, Dmitry Rogozin. He said that the democratic procedures in Chechnya should be implemented only once order was restored in the republic.
However, having already announced that the republic had transferred to the stage of peaceful restoration, the Kremlin wanted no emergency measures in Chechnya. That was why right after Akhmad Kadyrov's death it was announced that the elections of the new president in the republic would take place according to the laws of the peace-time – in strict compliance with the local Constitution that had been adopted a year before.
It turned out though that there were practically no candidatures to replace Akhmad Kadyrov in the office of the president. For understandable reasons Kadyrov had not prepared a successor. As for his 27-year-old son, Ramzan Kadyrov, who headed the presidential security service, he turned out to be too young to take his father's place (according to the Constitution of Chechnya, candidates to presidency should be no younger than 30). The Kremlin had tied the whole process of settlement exclusively to the person of Akhmad Kadyrov. Thus it faced a difficult choice: there were no figures in the circle of the head of Chechnya who could at least somewhat compare to the deceased president. At the same time the Kremlin flatly rejected the idea of holding truly free elections in Chechnya: Moscow had to retain control over the means channeled for the restoration of the republic.
As a result the elections in Chechnya developed according to a typical Kremlin scenario. All conceivable and inconceivable resources were channeled for the support of the Kremlin candidate. This was the head of Chechnya's Interior Ministry Alu Alkhanov (according to Vlast's sources, this candidature was suggested to Putin by Ramzan Kadyrov). Alkhanov's most dangerous rival – the head of the Milan concern, Malik Saidullayev – was removed from the elections. All federal TV channels participated in Alkhanov's promotion; the public council for control over the restoration of Chechnya's economy was set up for his sake, on the eve of the elections it assumed the functions of the republican government; Grozno's Terek soccer club was also working for him – in 2004 the team won the Russian Cup and gained the right to play in the Premier League next year. President Putin received the chief Chechen militiaman at least three times. Each of these meetings was accompanied by big promises on the part of Moscow. Vladimir Putin's most precious gift to candidate Alkhanov was made in Sochi one week before the elections. He promised that the income from the sale of the Chechen oil would remain in Chechnya. The meeting in Sochi was preceded by president Putin's blitz visit to Chechnya to the grave of Akhmad Kadyrov.
On August 29, the elections in Chechnya took place in precise accordance with the plans of the federal authorities – practically without any incidents and with the anticipated winner. However, the Kremlin had only a couple of days to rejoice about the victory of the Chechen democracy. Beslan happened already on September 1. After that Vladimir Putin had to resort to emergency measures – and this time all over the country.
&The events are ranked according to the frequency of mentioning in the Russian mass media (the ratio: the number of materials in mass media that covered the event to the total number of materials published by mass media during the selected period of time (%). In case of unexpected events (terrorist act, resignation) a two-week period after the event was researched. In case of planned events (elections) – a week before and a week after was taken. The resources of the electronic library of the Integrum information agency (more than 1900 central and regional newspapers, information agencies, TV- and radio companies, internet-publications) were used to take measurements.
Dmitry Kamyshev, Alla Barakhova
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 20, 2004
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