Volume 9 Numbers 1/2

Winter/Spring 2000

Constitutional Watch
     A country-by-country update on constitutional politics in Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR

Russia - On New Year's Eve, Boris Yeltsin unex-pectedly resigned as president of the Russian Federation, ending nearly ten years of rule and presumably ushering in a new era in postcommunist Russian politics. The stunning announce-ment capped an already tumultuous winter. The horrific second Chechen war ground on, with mounting casualties and growing accusations of war crimes in the region, all with an increasingly corrosive effect on Russian democ-racy and human rights. Then-prime minister Vladimir Putin capitalized on the war's overwhelming popularity among Russians to create a new political "party of power," which finished a close and unexpected second in December's elections to the Duma. Yeltsin's resignation came in the wake of Putin's meteoric rise in the polls, and it put Putin-then as acting president-in what amounted to an unassailable position from which to run for president in the March election.

Putin went on to win the presidential election in the first round on March 26. Results showed that he captured 53 percent of the vote. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov won 29 percent, and Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, 6 percent. In fourth place was Kemerovo governor Aman Tuleev, with 3 percent. Ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky also won 3 percent.

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On February 2, the Russian media reported that Chechen fighters had withdrawn from the Chechen capital, Grozny, apparently after retreating into an ambush and suffering heavy losses. Among the casual-ties were several important Chechen field commanders, including guerrilla leader Shamil Basaev, who was reported to have lost a leg while fleeing across a mine-field. In a televised interview on February 7, then-acting president Putin announced the "liberation" of Grozny by federal forces. The Pyrrhic nature of the victory was immediately evident as the Russian tricolor was raised over a gutted city, and, on February 14, Russian Interior Ministry officials ordered the remaining civilian population to evacuate. (It remains unclear when or whether the city, whose population once exceeded 300,000, will ever be rebuilt.) Meanwhile, Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov vowed to regroup in the southern mountains and launch guerrilla raids in Chechnya and elsewhere in Russia.

The second Chechen conflict, like the first (1994-96), produced a humanitarian crisis in the region and an erosion of the rule of law and civil liberties across Russia. An estimated 150,000 to 180,000 refugees have poured into Ingushetia, and roughly 12,000 more refugees and displaced persons are currently seeking refuge in Dagestan. The Russian mili-tary's treatment of civilians has been harsh. With Russia.partisans based in towns and villages, Russian forces have often made little distinction between combatants and civilians. Many cities and towns were subjected to devastating and prolonged bombardment, resulting in heavy civilian casualties. At several points in the conflict, Russian forces detained male refugees over the age of ten on the pretext of screening for militants. Human Rights Watch is investigating claims by refugees that Russian soldiers rounded up and summarily executed unarmed civilians. Commanders have denied these charges but admitted that looting by soldiers has become a serious problem in occupied towns and villages, including Grozny.

In contrast to the first Chechen war, popular support inside Russia for the campaign held firm throughout the siege of Grozny. The campaign's apparent popularity was partly the result of a change of tactics as Russian forces advanced more slowly this time and made far greater use of aerial and artillery bombardment, sparing Russian soldiers' lives. The government also proved more astute at managing public opinion. Following the rebels' armed incursion into Dagestan and several still-mysterious explosions in apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, in September, the war was cast as a struggle against domestic terrorism not against ethnic separatism. In addition, casualty figures were closely guarded by Russian authorities, who claimed, on April 20, that 2,144 military servicemen had died and 6,325 had been wounded since the beginning of the conflict. Independent estimates of casualties were considerably higher, with the Moscow-based Committee of Soldiers' Mothers suggesting Russian casualties four times this amount, and the privately owned television station NTV claiming a death toll some ten times higher than the official total. Casualties on the Chechen side were even more difficult to estimate.

The manipulation of public opinion was facilitated by a crackdown on independent media outlets. From the outset, Russian authorities made a determined effort to squelch the kind of critical reporting that weakened popular support of the last Chechen war. Those in charge managed to prevent journalists from gaining easy access to the Chechen side and condemned as disloyal anyone who attempted to report objectively. Consequently, the national television channels ORT and RTR tended to recite the government line. As the war dragged on, more direct actions were initiated against journalists taking a critical perspective. International journalists were routinely denied accreditation in Chechnya, and some without "proper" documentation were arrested. On December 29, Russian forces arrested seven Western journalists near Grozny, holding them for nine hours. On January 23, journalists from NTV televi- sion were ejected from the Russian military's journalist pool for reporting higher-than-official casualties. (This action followed a more critical line being taken by NTV, after owner Vladimir Gusinsky fired the station's head, Oleg Dobrodeev, for being insufficiently critical.)

The most disturbing case of media harassment concerned Andrei Babitsky, a 35-year-old correspon-dent for US-funded Radio Liberty, who often reported from behind Chechen lines. Babitsky disappeared on January 15 and was missing for two weeks before federal authorities announced that they had arrested and charged him with entering a military-exclusion zone without proper accreditation. On February 5, government spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky announced bizarrely that Babitsky had been turned over to Chechen fighters in exchange for two captured Russian servicemen. Russian television broadcast a tape of Babitsky being turned over to unidentified, masked gunmen at an unmarked crossroads. (The human-rights organization Glasnost Fund later dubbed this tape a "crude fabrication.") Amid growing interna-tional protests and fears for Babitsky's safety, Russian officials offered confusing accounts of what exactly had happened to the journalist. On February 13, Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo informed RTR that Interior officials in Chechnya had taken the "correct and justified" decision in trading Babitsky for two soldiers. Two days later, Putin added, apparently with no irony intended, that officials were doing "all they could" to ensure Babitsky's safety and freedom. Babitsky resurfaced in Dagestan at the end of February, recounting stories of being beaten, and was temporarily rearrested. He has since returned safely to Moscow, but the details of his ordeal remain murky. (For more on the government's relation to the media, see the article by Oleg Panfilov in this issue.)

Despite the specter of human-rights violations in Chechnya, Russia has, at least for now, retained its membership in the Council of Europe. On January 25, the council's Parliamentary Assembly voted to allow the Russian delegation to retain its seat. But later, it recom-mended that its membership be suspended. It is unlikely, though, that anything will come of this. The assembly did, however, vote to strip Russia of its voting rights, causing the country's 24-member mission to storm out of the hall. The International Helsinki Federation, a federation of human-rights organizations, called on the assembly to hold the "behavior of the Russian government up to international standards."

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On December 19, Russians went to the polls to elect the 450-member Duma (the lower house of parlia-ment). Twenty-six parties and blocs competed for the 225 seats distributed according to each party's share of a national party-list vote; and between 3 and 24 candi-dates competed in each of the 225 single-member constituencies. Turnout was a respectable 62 percent. Although the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) gained the expected plurality, the big story of the elections was the spectacular performance of the Edinstvo (Unity) party, formed from scratch this summer by Kremlin supporters under the nominal lead-ership of the minister for emergencies, Sergei Shoigu. This Potemkin party was intended as a counterweight to the Fatherland-All Russia bloc of regional governors, whose rise had been instrumental in the demise of former prime minister Sergei Stepashin. Edinstvo's spectacular success was a key element in consolidating Putin's position and in persuading Yeltsin to step down, preparing the ground for Putin to contend for the pres-idency. Other parties allied with Putin-the Union of Right Forces and Zhirinovsky's Bloc (a relabeled version of his Liberal Democratic Party)-also performed better than expected. Both comfortably cleared the 5 percent threshold for representation in the Duma. The big loser was Fatherland-All Russia, led by former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov and Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, which polled a disappointing 13 percent, effectively terminating the presidential ambi-tions of both men. The liberal Yabloko party, led by Grigory Yavlinsky, polled a miserable 6 percent, as voters apparently punished Yavlinsky for gingerly proposing a cease-fire in Chechnya.

The preliminary report from the OSCE's observer mission characterized the Duma elections as "competi-tive and pluralistic" and indicated they represented "significant progress for the consolidation of democ-racy in the Russian Federation." But the report also contained substantial criticisms of the process. In particular, the mission concluded that the media "failed to provide impartial and fair information." Kremlin-friendly media outlets, in particular the television stations ORT and RTR, led a militant and aggressive campaign against Fatherland-All Russia and its leaders, issuing a platform of unsubstantiated and prejudicial allegations. The other major television station, NTV, owned largely by Luzhkov ally Vladimir Gusinsky, was generally very critical of the Kremlin parties, though the overall effect was far from balanced. The Communists were largely ignored by the electronic media, as was the case in the 1996 presidential election.

In some regions, local media outlets were constrained by executive authorities. In Primorski Krai and the republics of Kalmykia, Bashkortostan, and Tatarstan, for example, some broadcasters and publishers lost their leases on premises controlled by local administrations, and some journalists were tossed out of their jobs. This was part of a larger pattern of ille-gitimate interference in the elections on the part of local and regional executive authorities. Abuses listed by the OSCE included "failure to allow opposition parties and candidates to arrange public meetings, dismissal from employment, initiation of extraordinary tax inspections, administrative fines, and criminal investigations that later proved groundless." Another aspect of the elec-tions criticized by the OSCE was excessive and illegal campaign spending, particularly on the part of Edinstvo, which made a mockery of existing campaign-finance legislation.

Some observers actually questioned whether there might be method behind the madness of the campaign. Writing two weeks before the ballot, the Moscow Times noted that the "parliamentary campaign has become so mired in scandal that it almost seems as if someone wants to create a pretext for nullifying the vote's results-just in case." On December 10, Kremlin pluto-crat Boris Berezovsky, who won a Duma seat, suggested that anyone challenging the outcome would have a "very substantial legal basis for doing so." One of the most farcical scandals concerned the registration of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The party, which often supported the Kremlin in the last Duma, was struck off the ballot in October by the Central Election Commission (CEC) for fielding a list of candidates who were under criminal investiga-tion or who refused to provide their full financial records. Zhirinovsky promptly reregistered as the head of a newly created party list, Zhirinovsky's Bloc. However, in response to a Supreme Court decision over the registration of the Union of Right Forces (which also supplied inaccurate financial records for its candi-dates), the CEC reversed its earlier decision and reinstated LDP. This left Zhirinovsky on the ballot twice, raising the bizarre possibility that he would split the vote with himself and therefore fall below the 5 percent Duma threshold. On December 8, the presidium of the Supreme Court revoked LDP's rereg-istration, and the CEC followed suit, leaving Zhirinovsky registered only once, as the leader of Zhirinovsky's Bloc, and so much the richer in publicity and perhaps even credibility.

The CEC's political and constitutional role, under the chairmanship of Aleksandr Veshnyakov, was one of the interesting features of the run-up to the Duma elec-tions. The commission had the power to reject or annul the registration of political parties or candidates and enforced this right in more than 100 cases at the federal level. In most instances, this power was invoked for failure to comply with financial-reporting requirements, which were intended as a bulwark against criminals seeking to enter the Duma in order to obtain immunity from prosecution. Veshnyakov also raised fears in media circles that he would enforce the provisions of the electoral law giving the CEC the power to regulate journalistic coverage of the campaign, but in the event these fears proved baseless.

A series of regional elections were also held begin-ning December 19. Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov easily won reelection to a third term, defeating former prime minister Sergei Kiriyenko and Kremlin property manager Pavel Borodin on the first ballot. Incumbents also won in Primorski Krai and Vologda, Yaroslavl, and Tver oblasts. In the Moscow Oblast, incumbent governor Anatolii Tyazhlov was knocked out in the first round, and former Afghan-war-hero Boris Gromov defeated Duma speaker Gennady Seleznev in the second round. New governors were also elected in three other oblasts. In Saint Petersburg, governor Vladimir Yakovlev, a leader of the Fatherland-All Russia bloc and longtime rival of Vladimir Putin, was stymied by the Supreme Court in his bid to hold early elections. The gubernatorial election will be held later this spring. Yakovlev, the incumbent, is the leading candidate, with April opinion polls giving him about 60 percent of the vote.

The new Duma's early sessions underscored the dangers of trying to interpret the December 19 vote as a victory or setback for "reform" in Russia. The new Duma's opening session witnessed a surprising alliance between progovernment Edinstvo and the opposition Communists. The union of the two parties, together with affiliated factions of independents, easily commanded more than half the votes in the chamber. The new coalition promptly flexed its muscles, first by reelecting the Communist speaker of the Duma, Gennady Seleznev, and then by monopolizing the chair-manships of the Duma's committees. Fatherland-All Russia was offered only one committee chair, as was Zhirinovsky's Bloc. This backstairs alliance, and the obscure negotiations that produced it, so infuriated deputies of the other parties that 100 members, repre-senting Fatherland-All Russia, Yabloko, and the Union of Right Forces, walked out of the Duma's first session and boycotted the second. On January 19, Yuri Luzhkov called the election of Seleznev "one of the first signs of the upcoming Bolshevik dictatorship." He continued: "a vulgar majority that makes decisions disregarding the minority has taken shape in the Duma. There is not even a hint at democracy or respect for the opinion of the minority." The boycott of the Duma continued for more than a week and was resolved only on January 26 with an agreement to redistribute committee chairs and to create new committees that could be chaired by the smaller parties. Putin later declared that the Edinstvo-Communist alliance signaled nothing about his future political direction. Perhaps the maneuver served a short-term tactical objective, namely, limiting Zyuganov's ability to present himself as an opposition firebrand in the run-up to the presidential election.

Edinstvo's success in the Duma election, coupled with Fatherland-All Russia's poor showing, left Putin by far the leading contender in the presidential contest. Yeltsin's New Year's Eve resignation then allowed Putin to parlay that lead into a practically unstoppable momentum, denying his opponents any opportunity to regroup. Yeltsin's decision to resign was apparently taken more than a week before it was announced but was kept secret from even his closest staff members. Yeltsin announced the move in dramatic fashion, taping a new version of his annual New Year's address on the morning of December 31 and then moving out of his Kremlin office immediately after it was broadcast, at midday. Putin promptly signed a decree providing Yeltsin with blanket immunity from prosecution, along with generous provisions for a pension, security, and office support. The ukaz is to cover every future presi-dent "having relinquished his duties," and therefore represents a kind of constitutional-amendment-by-decree. The ex-president's immunity does not extend to Yeltsin's family or close associates, some of whom are currently under investigation in connection with bribery and money-laundering, but its provisions protecting Yeltsin against "search and interrogation" will seriously impede the gathering of evidence against them.

Under the Constitution, Putin functioned as both prime minister and acting president until the preterm, March 26 presidential election. Although his approval ratings slipped slightly at the beginning of February, Putin remained favored by more than 50 percent of the electorate. His nearest opponent, Zyuganov, initially languished far behind, in the high teens, but did better as the campaign progressed. On February 4, former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov, expected to be Putin's strongest challenger, announced he would not seek election. Primakov had been subjected to with-ering criticism and ridicule by broadcasters on Russia's national ORT channel during the Duma campaign. He announced that he made the decision not to run after the Duma elections showed him how far Russia had moved away from "true democracy."

Following Boris Yeltsin's resignation from the presidency, Putin made a series of personnel changes that, although far from sweeping, served to distance him from the Yeltsin "family." Finance Minister Mikhail Kasyanov was promoted to become the sole first deputy prime minister. The other two first deputy prime minis-ters- Nikolai Aksenenko and Viktor Khristenko-were demoted but remained in the cabinet. Pavel Borodin, the Kremlin property manager deeply implicated in a series of financial scandals, was removed from his post and shifted to the largely ceremonial position of secretary to the Russian-Belarusian union. Meanwhile, Borodin has been summoned by Swiss authorities to appear in connection with corruption charges. At the same time, Putin has brought a number of his former associates from the Saint Petersburg KGB to Moscow and placed them in some key positions.

The tough rhetoric Putin used in connection with the Chechen war has been extended to talk of rebuilding the Russian state. Speaking to justice ministry officials on January 31, Putin stressed his intention to "strengthen" the Russian state, to bring back security and discipline, and to enforce the "dicta-torship of law." In connection with this, he called for the rapid approval of new land, labor, civil, and crim-inal- procedure codes. In the same speech, Putin also sounded a warning against conflicts between regional and central legislation, which "may reach a critical point capable of blasting the common constitutional space." The speech was followed by new appointments of presidential representatives to the regions, a sign of Putin's desire to rein in the autonomy enjoyed by Russia's many regional leaders. His capacity to do so remains even now unclear. During the fall, it appeared that a new Duma and an ailing Yeltsin might have used the period before the presidential election to reach an accommodation regarding a more equal constitutional balance of power. With a strong new figure in the Kremlin backed by a majority in the lower house, the debate about changing the balance of power between president and parliament appears over, at least for now. Still, analysts are waiting to see what Putin will do once inaugurated on May 7. His campaign platform was short on details. For now, it appears that he and the Duma may be finding a common language and building a good working relationship. On April 14, the Duma, encouraged by Putin, ratified Start II, the nuclear-arms-reduction treaty whose passage had been blocked by Communist deputies for years.

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The long-running prosecution of former naval commander Aleksandr Nikitin ended in acquittal on December 29, in Saint Petersburg. Nikitin had been charged with espionage for his participation in exposing illegal nuclear-waste dumping by the Russian Northern Fleet. The prosecutions against Nikitin lasted for more than four years.

The fortunes of suspended procurator general Yuri Skuratov took a less promising turn. Suspended by Yeltsin over his investigations of corruption in the Kremlin, Skuratov announced he would run for the presidency in order to publicize his allegations. This was a step too far for Russian authorities, and Skuratov was formally charged with abuse of power on January 31. The charges relate to the purchase of 14 suits and other items worth nearly $40,000.

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