Former Rivals Move Over to Putin Camp

In a sign of Vladimir V. Putin’s growing grip on power, leaders from two prominent rival factions defected to the acting president’s camp Wednesday as parliament set the date for an early presidential election.

Putin, making an extraordinary public appearance with his potential opponents in the race, sought to portray a sense of unity absent during much of the fractious Yeltsin era. “Fair and clean elections,” he declared, “will lead to the consolidation of society.”

Hours later, parliament’s upper house voted 145 to 1 to set the election for March 26--leaving just 80 days for candidates to organize their campaigns and spread their message in a country that spans 11 time zones.

Putin has acknowledged that the decision by President Boris N. Yeltsin to abdicate on New Year’s Eve and call a special election has given him a “head start” in the race.

His popularity is now so high that leaders of the All-Russia bloc--which had backed former Prime Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov, Putin’s foremost rival--announced that the group will support Putin.

Similarly, former Prime Minister Sergei V. Stepashin, a leader of the pro-market Yabloko party, said he will support Putin instead of the candidate of his own party, Grigory A. Yavlinsky.

“So far Putin hasn’t got a real rival,” Stepashin said. “I think the representatives of democratic forces will unite around Vladimir Putin, and I will be among them, as a former prime minister and as a man who is on friendly terms with him.”

In its first gaffe since Putin took over, the Kremlin acknowledged that deputy chief of staff Igor V. Shabdurasulov was wrong when he told reporters Sunday that candidates would need to collect 1 million signatures in less than six weeks to qualify for the ballot.

Shabdurasulov had said that the 1-million-signature threshold was included in a law that Yeltsin signed on his last day in office and would make it difficult for candidates to run against Putin.

When the law was made public Wednesday for the first time, however, the text showed that candidates will be required to collect 500,000 signatures to run in the special election, as the previous law had required.

Kremlin officials said they were unable to explain the error or why Shabdurasulov had volunteered that Yeltsin was making life tougher for Putin’s foes by signing the law. Shabdurasulov was out of the country and could not be reached, they said.

“Every one of us is human, and humans can make slips in speaking,” said his aide, Dmitry V. Zasluyev.

Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana Dyachenko, believed to have such influence with her ailing father that she was said to be the one running the country, broke a long silence and said she didn’t know of his plan to resign “until the last moment.”

“Dad said nothing to his family,” she said in an interview published Wednesday in Kommersant, a newspaper controlled by Kremlin insider Boris A. Berezovsky. “When early on Dec. 31 he said at home that he was going to resign, Mom did not even realize that he was resigning the same day.”

Dyachenko said she believes that Yeltsin made the decision to resign during his trip to Beijing in early December, although she didn’t discuss what led to the decision. Putin has said Yeltsin informed him of his plan about 10 days before stepping down.

Dyachenko said Yeltsin plans to set up a foundation that will include a library and archives and to travel “a great deal,” including to Britain and France. As president, Yeltsin traveled rarely because of his poor health.

“He has seen very little,” she said. “I sometimes say to him, ‘Remember something we saw somewhere?’ And he answers no. Really, what could he have seen from a car?”

On Wednesday, Yeltsin began a three-day visit to the Holy Land, where he is to meet with Israeli President Ezer Weizman and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

Yeltsin taped his resignation speech on the morning of Dec. 31. “He looked at ease and even said soothing words to us,” Dyachenko said. “Many of those who were present during the recording session could not help crying. Me too.”

The timing of Yeltsin’s resignation on New Year’s Eve--just before a major Russian drinking holiday--has seemingly paralyzed many of the candidates who were expected to run in an election originally scheduled for June.

Primakov has not been heard from, although he attended the meeting at the Kremlin between Putin and leaders of parliament--a group that includes all the likely presidential candidates.

Communist Party leader Gennady A. Zyuganov, who lost to Yeltsin in 1996, said party officials will meet today and announce their candidate.

Some officials speculate that the Communists, knowing they can never poll much more than a quarter of the population, will unite behind Primakov, who was popular last year before Putin came on the scene.

But the chances of a strong Primakov candidacy suffered a setback when the All-Russia bloc joined with Putin. The faction, which was allied with Primakov during the parliamentary campaign, is led by governors from a number of Russian regions.

“We came to a common decision to back Putin as the only candidate for president,” said St. Petersburg Gov. Vladimir A. Yakovlev.