Putin vows to tighten grip on power

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, MAY 6. A day before he will be formally sworn in as Russia's second President, Mr. Vladimir Putin, indicated that his top priority after inauguration would be to consolidate his hold on power.

Mr. Putin said his first steps after taking office would be to ``build up a more rigid vertical of power, improve the work of the law-enforcement agencies and streamline the presidential administration.'' The President-elect was speaking at a modest ceremony at the Central Election Commission where he was presented with a document certifying his election as President in the March 26 poll. The official swearing-in will be held on Sunday in the Kremlin.

Mr. Putin has inherited immense powers vested in the presidency by the 1993 constitution, which was tailor-made to meet the insatiable appetite for power of his predecessor, Mr. Boris Yeltsin. The President names the Prime Minister, who must then be confirmed by the Lower House of Parliament, has a decisive say in appointing all other Ministers and is empowered to dismiss the Prime Minister and the Government. He is entitled to issuing decrees which do not contradict the constitution and can veto laws approved by the Parliament. The President can dissolve the Lower House if it refuses three times to back his candidate for Prime Minister or if it votes no-confidence in the Government. Parliament has little means of exerting real influence on the President.

However, Mr. Yeltsin has failed to build an effective mechanism to wield his vast powers, a major flaw his successor is now determined to rectify.

Mr. Putin is expected to turn his Kremlin administration and the advisory Security Council into his main strategy-mapping and decision-making bodies, relying on trusted cadres from Russian security and intelligence agencies. An ex-KGB officer himself, Mr. Putin has already appointed several security officials to key posts in the Kremlin and is likely to induct more of his former colleagues.

An internal Kremlin memo leaked to the press last week called for boosting the powers of Mr. Putin's Kremlin administration and increase the role of the secret services in controlling ``the political and social processes in the Russian Federation.''

``Russia is to become an even more presidential republic,'' the document said. ``The Government will be restricted to a modest role: carrying out economic tasks and not straying from the political line.''

The top candidate for the post of Prime Minister is Mr. Mikhail Kasyanov, who has been de facto Cabinet chief after Mr. Putin, who currently holds the post, took over as Acting President following the snap resignation of Mr. Yeltsin on December 31, 1999. Mr. Kasyanov, a typical bureaucrat with no political ambitions of his own, perfectly fits into a power- sharing arrangement suggested by Kremlin strategists.

Mr. Putin's promise to strengthen ``the vertical of power'' means curbing the free-wheeling regional barons to heel and restore the authority of a strong central government watered down under Mr. Yeltsin. The President-elect has already moved to amend the law to ensure that the chief local prosecutor and the heads of the police, tax and custom departments are appointed by the federal government only and be subordinate exclusively to the centre. The Kremlin is also drafting constitutional amendments to allow the President to dismiss regional governors if they violate the law.

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Section  : International
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