Putin Proposes Restructuring to Curb Provinces

Just 10 days after being inaugurated as Russia’s new president, Vladimir V. Putin proposed sweeping changes to the country’s system of government Wednesday that appeared designed to enhance his power, especially over unruly provinces.

Putin made the proposals in a surprise television address just hours after parliament approved his nominee, Mikhail M. Kasyanov, as prime minister--the lawmakers’ last chance to influence the lineup of the new government.

Putin said the changes, which would rein in powerful provincial governors and limit their influence in Moscow, are needed to remove “obvious contradictions in the organization of power in Russia” and “strengthen and cement Russian statehood.”

“And so Vladimir Putin has begun to act,” said Mikhail Osokin, anchor of the evening news on the NTV network, responding to Putin’s address. “The central meaning of this for the population is that it will strengthen the vertical structure of power” supporting the president.

Under Putin’s proposals, which require the approval of both houses of parliament, governors would no longer serve as members of the upper house, or Federation Council. Instead, governors would remain at home, and the regions would send a permanent representative to the council.

“Governors should concentrate on the real problems facing their territories,” Putin said. “That’s what the people elect them to do.”

Kremlin’s Tumultuous Ties With Regions

Relations between the Kremlin and Russia’s 89 regions have long been tumultuous. Governors, who frequently rule their territories like fiefdoms, have alternated between supporting presidents and challenging them.

Many governors are political powerhouses in their own right. Alexander I. Lebed, a former general who ran unsuccessfully for president in 1996 and served as a presidential security advisor, leads the Krasnoyarsk region. Vladimir A. Yakovlev, the formidable leader of the St. Petersburg region, won reelection last weekend despite initial strong opposition from the Kremlin.

Governors succeeded three times last year in preventing former President Boris N. Yeltsin from ousting the country’s top law enforcement official, who was trying to investigate alleged Kremlin corruption.

Proposals to curb the governors’ powers “have been floated continuously by various political forces, especially in the last year,” said Liliya F. Shevtsova, a political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center. “Changing the principles of forming the Federation Council has always been viewed as a powerful instrument to put a bridle on regional feudal lords.

“In general, Putin’s initiative undoubtedly signifies . . . a move toward authoritarianism,” Shevtsova said.

Each region has two representatives in the council: the governor and a second person, usually the head of the regional legislature. It wasn’t immediately clear if Putin meant to push the legislative chiefs out of the council. Nor did he specify how council representatives would be chosen under his proposals--by governors, voters or the regional legislators.

In addition to changes in the Federation Council, Putin proposed laws that would make it possible for the president to remove governors and dissolve regional legislatures, for regional legislatures to impeach governors and for governors to remove lower-ranking officials.

Some politicians--especially those eager to get in the new president’s good graces--welcomed the proposals as a way to increase the government’s efficiency.

“If someone proposes a law which can create a better mechanism for forming the Federation Council, I am sure that members of the Federation Council will accept it,” said Vladimir Platonov, the council’s deputy chairman.

Others took a more ominous view.

“The proposals only corroborate the fact that Putin has embarked on the path of turning Russia into an authoritarian country and he is not ready to swerve from this road,” said Andrei A. Piontkovsky, director of the Independent Institute for Strategic Studies, a Moscow think tank.

It is an irony of the post-Soviet period that although the president officially enjoys near-authoritarian powers, in practice the Kremlin’s control over regional leaders is weak. Putin estimated that one-fifth of the legislation passed by regional parliaments violates federal laws.

“It’s no secret that Moscow has long been trying to persuade the heads of the regions of the Russian Federation to abide by the Russian Constitution and federal legislation,” said Gennady N. Seleznyov, speaker of the Duma, parliament’s lower house. “But the former president lacked the political will to carry out this process to the end. Now the time for talking has ended, and the time for acting has come.”

Although the proposals would radically alter the composition of the upper house, Putin said no constitutional changes would be necessary. The constitution specifies only that the Federation Council “should be formed” by the executive officials of the regions, a phrase that Putin said was vague enough to encompass his proposals.

Piontkovsky and others predicted that there would be little resistance to Putin’s proposals, in part because governors are eager not to anger the new president.

“The governors have become so docile and tame that if, tomorrow, they are told that they will be strung up and that they need to come to the gallows with their own ropes, they will be there right on time with ropes in their hands,” Piontkovsky said.

He added that many politicians fear Putin, because of his past as a Soviet-era KGB agent and because they want to be on his good side if he turns into a strongman.

“The genes of fear are easily activated in many high-ranking leaders in Russia,” Piontkovsky said. “The genetic fear of the 1930s repressions makes the governors nod their heads in agreement to everything that Putin does.”

Still, Shevtsova, the political analyst, predicted that different governors will take different tacks depending on how strong they are in their regions.

“The governors, of course, will not stage a rebellion,” she said. “Those whose chances to get reelected are slim will come to Putin cap in hand, demonstrating their loyalty. . . . Those who feel stronger will go on an ‘Italian strike’--many of Putin’s initiatives will simply be soft-pedaled and will fizzle out.”

Lawmakers Eager to Please President

Putin’s address came just hours after parliament demonstrated its eagerness to please the president and overwhelmingly approved his choice for prime minister. The vote in favor of Kasyanov was 325 to 55, with 15 abstentions.

Kasyanov’s confirmation completes a government overhaul that began in December, when voters elected a parliament that overwhelmingly supported then-Prime Minister Putin. Yeltsin resigned Dec. 31, handing power to Putin, who was elected president in March.

Deputies described the easy approval of Kasyanov--an economist and debt negotiator--as yet another endorsement of Putin and his government, signaling a new era of cooperation between parliament and president.

“This was a vote in favor of Putin and his program, for his new course and the promises he has made to the electorate,” said Lyubov Sliska, deputy speaker of the Duma. “The electorate believes in Putin.”

In yet another act of loyalty to Putin, the Federation Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved his candidate for prosecutor general, a job in dispute for more than a year.

The Kremlin tried to force out the previous prosecutor, Yuri I. Skuratov, who launched several corruption investigations of high-ranking officials and refused to resign. He relented, however, after Putin’s election.

By a vote of 114 to 10, the council easily approved Putin’s nominee: Vladimir Ustinov, formerly prosecutor in the southern city of Sochi.