08 December 2003 03:55
EUROPEAN NEWSPAPERS ON RUSSIAN ELECTIONS
PARIS, Dec 8 (ONASA - AFP) - Most European newspapers commented Monday that weekend parliamentary polls in Russia had
strengthened President Vladimir Putin three months before he seeks re-election, and some declared this was a setback for
democracy. The Financial Times, the only British newspaper to give the election prominent front-page coverage, said
Russian voters had given Putin "a free hand to pass reform legislation." But it warned that the unexpected
strong showing by nationalist parties could encourage Putin "to adopt a more hard line on foreign policy as he
seeks a second term in March." The Independent said Putin "could face compromises over economic and judicial
reforms" with the nationalists, while the Communist Party, which enjoyed a monopoly on power for more than 70 years
after the 1917 Russian Revolution, had "collapsed into insignificance". Britain's conservative Daily
Telegraph said the election had removed "the last effective bastion of opposition" to Putin and paved the way
"for him to assume Tsar-like powers". Rome's left-of-center daily La Repubblica also described Putin as
"a new Tsar" and said voters had given him "unlimited powers". For Italy's leading daily
Corriere della Sera, the election was the latest stage in "the gradual assertiveness of a regime" which was
exploiting "the defects of a party political system, the control of power via the media and the selective and
therefore political use of justice". The left-wing Paris daily Liberation agreed that not since the death of the
Communist leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1982 "has so much power been concentrated in the hands of one man". But it
would be premature to conclude that Russia was on the brink of sliding back into dictatorship, it said. The country was
in the throes of democratic revolution and at the same time exposed to the pressures of globalization "which are as
much about the exchange of ideas as about trade," Liberation said. "Civil society exists in Russia and is
developing despite the political freeze that is taking place," Liberation went on. The election result was a
reminder that progress towards democracy was not inevitable or irreversible, it added. The conservative French daily Le
Figaro described the vote as a triumph for Putin, whose background presence "eclipsed all debate" in a
lackluster election campaign dominated by the official media. It remained to be seen only whether his supporters would
win a two-thirds majority in the state Duma, the lower house, enabling him to change the constitution which limits him
to two terms as president, the paper said. The French Communist party daily l'Humanite did not even mention the
elections, in which Russian communists trailed badly with 12.7 percent of the vote. L'Humanite led its
international news pages with a report on Sunday's huge demonstration in Rome against the proposed pension reforms
of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. "Putin now holds all the levers of power in Russia and this has accentuated
the drift towards authoritarianism of an increasingly personal regime," commented the Spanish daily El Mundo. The
right-wing ABC, a supporter of Spain's conservative Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, said "Russia has for the
moment turned away from the path leading to a model of an open society and has instead turned towards authoritarian and
populist nationalism." Recalling the "erratic" rule of Putin's unpredictable predecessor Boris
Yeltsin, Germany's one-time communist broadsheet and now left-of-center Berliner Zeitung said "Russians tasted
democracy, but it did them little good. That is why they have gone for Putin, who behaves like a benign Tsar towards his
subjects."
[CEIW] |
RUSSIA IN FACTS
