Russia: Power’s New Look

Russian voters have broken the obstructionist power of the Communist Party and its allies in parliament and set the stage for the emergence of a new moderate bloc built around Unity, a party that did not even exist four months ago.

Just what Unity stands for, beyond supporting the presidential aspirations of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin and backing the war against Chechnya, is a mystery. Its platform boldly endorses happiness and marital fidelity and exalts “manliness” but is otherwise unilluminating. No matter. With more than 23% of the vote, Unity ran only slightly behind the Communists. If, as expected, it is joined by other reformist parties and most of the more than 130 independents who were elected to the lower house, the Duma, it bodes to dominate the legislature.

How that came about is not a pretty story. The oligarchs, whose power has multiplied under President Boris N. Yeltsin--and who have enriched the Yeltsin clan in return--spent unsparingly to boost Unity and slander its most feared opponents, especially the Fatherland-All Russia coalition headed by a former prime minister and likely presidential candidate, Yevgeny M. Primakov. The tycoons were betting on the future. The popular Putin, a career intelligence agent before being tapped by Yeltsin as his successor, right now looks like a sure winner in next June’s presidential election. He owes the oligarchs, and if he becomes president it’s a certainty the debt will be called.

Russian politicians are easily the equals of their American counterparts when it comes to avoiding detailed discussion of tough issues. Despite Russia’s massive economic and social problems, the Duma campaign was essentially issueless. So Russians have entrusted much of their future to the parliamentary leadership of a hastily formed party that lacks both an ideology and an agenda. That leaves it with a lot of room for maneuvering, but also with the potential for programmatic incoherence.

Part of Putin’s popularity comes from his readiness to take on the United States, reminding nationalistic Russians of their lost status as a major power. But Putin surely knows that Russia can go only so far in confronting America and the West. In the end Russia must have outside help as it scrambles to construct a free market economy and ease the poverty into which so many Russians have been cast. Getting that help requires that Moscow have an economic program worthy of external support and that it behave in ways that don’t conflict with the interests, or insult the values, of those whose help it seeks. Both those requisites are yet to be met.