Japanese editorial excerpts -2-

Japan Policy & Politics, March 1, 2004

TOKYO, Feb. 27 Kyodo

Selected editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

MR. PUTIN TIGHTENS HIS GRIP (The Japan Times, an English-language daily)

Most presidents change the government after an election. This week Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed his entire Cabinet three weeks before he faces voters. The move was not an election gambit -- the outcome of next month's ballot is not in doubt.

Mr. Putin will be re-elected by a landslide. The dismissal of the Cabinet is more a definitive break with the past than a reorientation for the future. It confirms the president's increasing control over all aspects of policy. It is another troubling development for Russia's young democracy.

In fact, the change of government was designed to rid the president of one man -- Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. The Russian Constitution stipulates that the entire government must go if the prime minister is fired, but that does not worry Mr. Putin. He named Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko as interim premier and kept the other Cabinet members as ''acting'' ministers. Mr. Putin has three weeks to name a genuine replacement.

There were a number of reasons for the firing. Officially, the president claimed that he wanted to avoid any ''uncertainty'' in the aftermath of the election. He could be setting up Mr. Kasyanov for the government's failure to implement more economic reform. Mr. Putin deemed the outgoing Cabinet's performance ''satisfactory,'' but said he wanted to speed up reforms.

More likely is that Mr. Putin wanted to make a complete break with the past. Mr. Kasyanov was the last holdover from the regime of former President Boris Yeltsin. Letting him go ends any association with an era that is, for many Russians, synonymous with corruption. The Yeltsin family and its camp followers enriched themselves in the first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was widely rumored that a condition for Mr. Putin's selection as successor to Mr. Yeltsin was immunity for whatever misdeeds may have been committed. Thus far, that bargain has been honored, but Mr. Putin has become increasingly confident and apparently no longer feels the need to keep the Yeltsin holdovers around.

Mr. Kasyanov was a former apparatchik who went from state planner to the highest ranks of the post-Soviet governments. As deputy finance minister in 1996, he worked out a deal for repaying debts Russia inherited from the Soviet Union, and he was crucial for Russian efforts to restore Moscow's international credibility after the government defaulted on foreign debt. He was named prime minister when Mr. Putin was elected president in 2000 and managed to stay in office until this week.

Apart from serving as a reminder of bygone days, Mr. Kasyanov had policy differences that gave Mr. Putin grounds to dismiss him. The prime minister was an advocate of business tycoons who have become a lighting rod for criticism in Russia. The final straw may have been the prime minister's criticism of the probe of the Yukos oil company, which is widely considered to have been a move by the president to end the political ambitions -- and make an example -- of Mr. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former owner who is now languishing in jail on charges of tax evasion and fraud. The prime minister said the probe undermined confidence in the government. He may have been right, but late last year, Mr. Putin also sacked his long time chief of staff, Mr. Alexander Voloshin, who had also spoken up on behalf of the business tycoons. Clearly, Mr. Putin has no great love for business interests or dissent.

The removal of Mr. Kasyanov continues the consolidation of power by Mr. Putin and his own group of insiders, many of whom came from the security apparatus as he did. Perhaps those roots explain their seeming intolerance of criticism or challenge. Whatever the source, the accumulating power in the presidency and the slow strangulation of alternative points of view do not bode well for Russian democracy.

Mr. Putin and his followers argue that Russia's priority must be economic development. Further, they claim that excessive democracy will only embolden criminals and corrupt officials who looted the country during the Yeltsin era. That argument should sound familiar to Asian ears, but by now it has lost its luster. Concentration of power is not what is needed. Rather, Russia, like the Asian economies, needs the rule of law and transparency in governance.

Authoritarianism is the problem, not the solution. Unfortunately, few people in office are enlightened enough to make that argument. Apparently, Mr. Putin is not among them.

(Feb. 27)