| |
DANCES WITH
BEARS
Putin puts his prime minister to
bed
By John Helmer
MOSCOW -
In Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the 18th century
French expose of the way vicious people plot to
undermine virtue, it is allowed to a manservant to point
out to the villain, the Vicomte de Valmont, that "going
to bed with a girl only means getting her to do
something she wants to do; but from that getting her to
do what we want is often quite another story."
For many years now, first as a deputy finance
minister, then as finance minister, and finally as
ex-president Boris Yeltsin's choice of premier to
succeed Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Kasyanov has played
everyone's choice of the willing girl. It has been a
lucrative and pleasurable run for him. There was even a
time last October, just before now-President Putin had
Yukos oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky arrested and jailed,
that Kasyanov imagined that he could invite ExxonMobil
into the bed in which he was sleeping. And that has
ultimately proved to be a problem for Putin: getting
Kasyanov to do what Putin wanted was quite another
story.
In an unexpected move, Putin dismissed
his government Tuesday, announcing in a live television
address that he is relieving Kasyanov of his duties, and
dismissing the entire cabinet. Prior to his
announcement, Russian politicians, including some close
to Putin's St Petersburg circle, believed that premier
Kasyanov had a 50 percent chance of being reappointed to
the post, after Putin wins reelection in presidential
elections. The poll, scheduled for March 14, looks
likely to be a walkover for Putin. Until now, he had not
been expected to do anything to his ministers except
oblige them to curry favor, and hold their breath.
Putin's decision not only ends Kasyanov's
chances, but it also clears the slate of all the
remaining Yeltsin appointees, and those ministers who
have been closest to the oligarchs, the half dozen or so
wealthy individuals who control most of Russia's oil,
mining and metals companies.
Putin has explained
the surprise move as "not connected the evaluation of
the cabinet's activity, which in my opinion have been
satisfactory". Rather, he said in a brief television
announcement, the change reflects "my desire to show
once more my position in the course of events which will
develop after the presidential election slated for March
14, 2004".
Removing Kasyanov, and putting an
apolitical caretaker, Deputy Prime Minister Victor
Khristenko, in his place, allows Putin to campaign as
the sole candidate in the presidential race committed to
a radical reorganization of Russia's wealth. He said as
much in his television statement: "Russian citizens have
the right to know the proposals in stock, including the
composition of the highest executive arm of government,
in case I am reelected president of the Russian
Federation." That's a nice way of saying that a vote for
Putin will bury the unpopular past; interring Kasyanov
& Co is a politically adept way of demonstrating who
is to blame. If Russian voters were entertaining the
thought of staying home on election day, voting against
all, or casting a protest vote for one of the minor
runners, then Putin's announcement demonstrates again,
as he did last autumn, that he should be the popular
choice by acclamation.
Putin's decision to fire
both Kasyanov and the cabinet together - while leaving
the latter to act as caretakers until the new lineup is
named - appears to have had no particular political
trigger, although Putin is known to feel personally
frustrated by what he views as the loyalty to the
oligarchs of cabinet ministers who profess to be loyal
to him.
His moves last autumn to charge the
Yukos oil company shareholders with tax evasion, fraud,
embezzlement and forgery are well known, and were one
reason for the sweep in the December parliamentary
elections of the pro-Putin movement, United Russia.
Less well-known is the move at the start of this
month by Sergei Stepashin, a Putin ally from St
Petersburg, and possible candidate to be the new prime
minister. Stepashin has ordered the state Accounting
Chamber, which he heads, to investigate another oil
oligarch, Roman Abramovich, for possible corruption in
his administration of the Chukotka region, which he has
headed since 2000.
Last Thursday, in another
surprise move, Putin's legal staff intervened to block
oligarch Vladimir Potanin, the controlling shareholder
of Norilsk Nickel, Russia's largest mining company, from
releasing hitherto secret data on his company's
production, sale, reserves and stockpiles of platinum
group metals. Declassification of these secrets had been
lobbied by Potanin last October, and backed by Alexei
Kudrin, the finance minister, and another contender to
be the new prime minister. Kudrin pushed the legislation
through parliament at record speed, and Putin signed it
into law last November.
The president appears to
have woken up to the implications of the legislation
only now. Potanin's hopes for cashing out part of his
multi-billion dollar stake in Norilsk Nickel have
depended on the declassification measure, and on backing
from ministers like Kasyanov and Kudrin. Now that they
are gone, Potanin is stymied. A source close to the
Kremlin has told Asia Times Online that Potanin has
"reason to be a nervous man - redivision of Norilsk
Nickel is inevitable".
The same source also said
that he believes Putin will continue playing one
oligarch off against another, and that he expects
aluminum boss, Oleg Deripaska, to run into Kremlin
trouble later in the year. Deripaska, who controls
Russian Aluminum (Rusal), one of the largest producers
of aluminum in the world, is also the most active of the
Russian oligarchs in Africa. He controls bauxite mines
and an alumina refinery in Guinea, and is publicly said
to be bidding for a Nigerian aluminum plant, due to be
awarded in April. An English High Court judge recently
issued a tough ruling criticizing Rusal's political and
commercial tactics in Guinea.
At home,
Deripaska's attempt to cash out some of Rusal's
downstream aluminum plants is now likely to attract much
keener attention from the Kremlin than it would have
under the outgoing government. According to local
government sources, Deripaska is trying to persuade US
aluminum giant Alcoa to buy him out of the Samara
Metallurgical Plant in the Samara region, and the Belaya
Kalitva Metallurgical Plant in Rostov.
An
outsider who has been advising Putin on policy reform in
the oil and mineral resource sector, Vladimir
Litvinenko, was not given much chance of winning a seat
in the new cabinet - until now. Litvinenko, rector of
the St Petersburg Mining Institute, has been a strong
advocate of blocking foreign corporation takeovers of
strategic Russian mineral assets. He has also told Asia
Times Online he favors the use-or-lose rules that were
recently invoked by the government to cancel
ExxonMobil's license for the Sakhalin-3 offshore project
in the far East. The American oil giant had held on to
the license for years, without doing anything to upset
Kasyanov. But by doing nothing at all he and ExxonMobil
have invited a veritable revolution in Russian resource
policy - and Putin now appears to be committed to that
direction.
By putting his prime minister to bed,
Putin has sent a wake-up call to Russian policymakers,
and the oligarchs, that is unmistakable.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
