Presidential Succession

Russia: Ghosts Of 1999 Haunt Presidential Succession By Brian Whitmore
Boris Yeltsin thanks Vladimir Putin for his services
(TASS)
August 9, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- It was the summer of 1999, and Boris Yeltsin's boozy and tumultuous presidency was drawing to a close.
Prosecutors were investigating Yeltsin's cronies -- and even members of his immediate family -- for graft. Russia was reeling from an economic crisis. Voters were in an angry and surly mood. And elections were looming. Such was the atmosphere when Yeltsin went on television eight years ago this week, on the morning of August 9, 1999, to tell the country that he was firing his government -- for the third time in less than a year. Yeltsin replaced his prime minister, Sergei Stepashin, with Federal Security Service (FSB) head Vladimir Putin. The president then shocked Russians -- and much of the world -- by anointing the dour and obscure former KGB officer Putin as his chosen heir. Putin's unlikely ascent followed months of chaos, turmoil, and uncertainty as rival clans ruthlessly battled to control Russia's first post-Soviet transition of power. And the events surrounding his meteoric rise in 1999 proved decisive. It was at this time when Russia's clumsy, fleeting, halting, and tentative experiment with Western-style liberal democracy ended. New Game, New Rules
It was also when the new rules of the game -- the ones Russia's political elite plays by today -- were established: outgoing presidents name their successors, the bureaucracy is expected to march in lockstep to support the heir to the throne, and the Kremlin will use any and all means necessary, no matter how brutal, to get its way. The Yeltsin-Putin succession and its aftermath also provides a lesson that is haunting Russia's current political elite. Once they are embedded in the Kremlin, Russian presidents become virtually all powerful and are impossible to control -- even by the patrons who orchestrated their rise to power. "The Russian presidency is so strong according to our archaic constitution that it is impossible to trust anybody with it," says Moscow-based political analyst Vladimir Pribylovsky. "It is dangerous. It turns a person practically into a Tsar. This is dangerous even for a short term."
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Putin said at the time that he hadn't planned to run for president, but added that he was accustomed to following the president's orders -- and would obey this one as well. "Sergei Vadimovich [Stepashin] and I are military men. The president has made a decision, and we will carry it out," Putin said.
Months later, on March 26, 2000, Russian voters would make Putin their president in an election that looked more like a coronation. Putin is widely expected to be able to anoint any successor he so chooses. According to recent polls, a startling 40 percent of Russian voters are prepared to cast ballots for Putin's chosen candidate in next March's election -- regardless of who that person is. A More Popular Spymaster
When the deeply unpopular Yeltsin anointed Putin his heir eight years ago, however, it looked like the longest of long shots. In August 1999, the most popular Russian politician was a steely former spymaster who talked about cleaning up graft, punishing the corrupt, and restoring Russia's lost pride. That savior's name, however, wasn't Putin. It was Yevgeny Primakov, who served as Yeltsin's prime minister from September 1998 until he was fired in May 1999.
Primakov had teamed up with Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and other regional leaders under the banner of the newly formed political party Fatherland-All Russia. The alliance appeared to have all the elements for political success -- a popular leader and a nationwide political machine that could deliver votes on election day.