Putin silent in face of anger over Duma deal

WIRE:01/19/2000 21:22:00 ET

MOSCOW, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Russia's Acting President Vladimir Putin has maintained a stony silence in the face of an unprecedented wave of public criticism following a surprise parliamentary pact between his allies and the Communists.

But with less than 10 weeks before a presidential election, it remained to be seen whether Putin's enemies could come up with a credible candidate to challenge him in the polls.

The political quarrels in Moscow have briefly distracted media attention from fighting in Chechnya, where Russian troops were in the fourth day of a renewed all-out assault to capture the regional capital Grozny after suffering setbacks last week.

NTV television reported from Grozny on Wednesday that Russian troops were making progress in the city block by block, but were meeting heavy resistance from well-entrenched fighters there.

The unexpected announcement this week that the pro-Putin Unity party would team up with the Communists to divide control over the State Duma lower house of parliament threw leading centrist and liberal factions into a hastily formed opposition.

The deal gave Communist Gennady Seleznyov the speaker's post and left Unity, a three-month-old bloc with no platform apart from its support for Putin, in charge of several committees.

Major centrist and liberal parties were mostly excluded from top posts. A third of lawmakers, including three former prime ministers, announced an open-ended boycott of the chamber and said they would coordinate their activities in opposition.

But so far Putin has defied their calls for him to explain his party's moves.

"Putin must comment on the situation personally," Konstantin Titov, a liberal regional governor, said in a television interview on Wednesday. He called the Unity-Communist deal a "cruel, cynical strike against democracy."

PRIMAKOV STAYS SILENT

Titov and the leader of the liberal Yabloko party, Grigory Yavlinsky, both accepted nominations to run for president on Wednesday, but former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, once seen as Putin's main challenger, declined to say if he would stand.

Russian journalists and analysts were split over whether Putin's apparent alliance with the Communists was shrewd or politically reckless. The daily Izvestia newspaper called the move cynical but clever, and said it would give Putin "a clean playing field" to run the country as he sees fit.

"A cynical and well-calculated effort is under way to sideline political opponents from making significant decisions. It is easier to work that way," the paper wrote.

The parliament boycott "is not the start of an anti-Putin coalition because (its leaders) will never agree among themselves," it said.

But the sudden shift in alliances was a reminder of the turbulence of Russian politics which could work against Putin, who has enjoyed enormous popularity but had never before made serious enemies among the country's top politicians.

"One must study the history of our country over the past 10 years," said Alexander Lyubimov, host of a talk show on ORT public television. "It is precisely when somebody begins to think of themselves as the victor that they begin to lose."

Putin's tough Chechnya stance has been the main source of his popularity so far, but the campaign has stalled since Russia encircled the Chechen capital last month.

A pro-Moscow Chechen leader said on Wednesday some guerrilla commanders had travelled to the Russian capital for talks with government officials. But he did not name the commanders involved and it was unclear whether they included those with influence among the rebels fighting Russian forces in the field.

Copyright )2000 ABC News Internet Ventures.

-- Possible Impact (posim@hotmail.com), January 19, 2000