Currents and Currents
Yeltsin's Departure : A Timely Decision
The end of the last millennium was marked, among others things, by an important statement by an important leader. The Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, announced that he resigned from the Presidency and handed over power to his Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, who would act as President till a successor is elected within 90 days, as per provision of the Russian Constitution.
The news apparently shocked the world. People have seen and known Boris Yeltsin as a forceful, boisterous and charismatic personality who would not ordinarily give up anything he enjoyed until the last moment and unless he is obliged to do so. People came to know about Boris Yeltsin more since 1991 when he catapulted himself to power, dislodging Communism from the state power in its very birth place. The West was happy. Liberal democracy supplanted the totalitarian system in its bastion of power and, with the consequent break-up of the Soviet Union, transformed a bipolar world into a unipolar one. America was, indeed, utterly delighted, having gained the most. It killed two birds with one stone, seriously hurting the arch rival of the capitalistic system and assuming undisputed supre-macy of the world.
It was, therefore, evident that America and the Western world would try to help the perpetually ailing Russian economy from its abyss of despair in all possible manners. They poured in billions of dollars, bilaterally and through international financial institutions, in terms of aid, trade and investment, to galvanize the frail economy of the prize convert, but without much success. The sudden leap from the Communist to the Capitalistic system brought about so much of dislocation to the Russian economy and to its social system that Boris Yeltsin's popularity steeply went down. The resultant backlash was reflected by the ascendancy of communist power in the Duma, the Russian Parliament. The communists made an abortive attempt to impeach Yeltsin but failed, thanks to the master manipulation of Duma members by Yeltsin. Besides economic degradation, the new Russia became plagued with rampant corruption and the rising Mafia. Yeltsin neither could improve economic conditions nor eliminate social evils. In addition, he was alleged to have funneled much wealth into his family by irregular means.
In late eighties, Boris Yeltsin was in the vanguard of the reform programme of "glassnost" and "perestroika" introduced by his predecessor, Mikhail Gorbachev. Yeltsin was a pal and the right-hand man of Gorbachev who used to go a step forward ahead of Gorbachev. Diplomatic observers assumed that Gorbachev used Yeltsin as a kite flier in order to ascertain how the wind blew in order to push his reform programme.
I had the privilege of knowing Yeltsin while he was Mayor or President of the Moscow City Council in 1986 when he used to call Ambassadors in meetings. He also became an alternate member of the Politburo. Then the situation started deteriorating. He went out of control of his mentor, President Gorbachev. As a result, he was stripped of both his Mayoral and Politburo posts. A wide rumour that was spread in the Moscow diplomatic circle then was that Gorbachev's wife Raisa had a role to play in this regard.
She used to interfere, it was alleged, in the running of the City administration, almost to the point of exasperation of short-tempered Yeltsin. This reminded me of a dinner hosted by me in Beijing in 1980 in honour of the Chinese Minister for Food and Agriculture, Lin Hujia, soon after he was transferred from his job of Mayorship of Beijing. I told the Minister he must then be much more busy, working for providing food for one-fifth of the world population. The Minister smiled and said, "at least no one from the leadership calls me now at dead of night to say that the sewerage in his house needed urgent repairs." Yeltsin's annoyance at Raisa's interference was, therefore, well understood.
A very interesting episode with Yeltsin took place on 7 November 1989. It was a grand reception hosted by President Gorbachev and Politburo members at the Kremlin on the occasion of the celebration of the great October Revolution. I found Boris Yeltsin standing in a corner of the large hall, quite forlorn and dejected. I went forward and politely started a conversation to cheer him up. I told him not to be so sad and disappointed and that his dark days would soon be over. Yeltsin looked at me curiously for what he might have thought my patronizing attitude. He asked me what made me say so. I thought for a moment and cautiously replied, "You are a politician and politicians' life normally rotate in a cycle. You may now be at the bottom of the cycle, but the cycle would turn and you will find yourself at the top." Yeltsin laughed and appeared pleased with my flattering but objective remarks. He asked his interpreter to tell me, " ask the Bangladesh Ambassador, if he is a soothsayer". Later in 1992, while I was High Commissioner in London, my Russian counterpart confirmed that Yeltsin still recalled the incident.
The reasons that prompted Yeltsin to resign six months ahead of the scheduled time are not far to seek. The question of his frail health was an important consideration. The burden of statecraft in that state of physical condition would have been too heavy and could have precipitated the inevitable before due time. Secondly, he knew that in the present condition he would not be able to improve the economic conditions of the country, thereby rendering himself more unpopular and reducing chances of winning the Presidential race by his nominee. Thirdly, handing over power to his Prime Minister was done after receiving firm assurance that Yeltsin and members of his family would not be indicted later for any irregularities, misuse of power and corruption. This insurance he could not obtain, if his nominee would have found as losing the election scheduled after six months. Finally, this would allow his nominee, Prime Minister Putin, to use state facilities for some significant time and what was considered impending victory in Chechnya to his advantage and to enhance chances of his election as President.
It is understood that Yeltsin's doctors were finally able to force him to give up his Presidential job. Yeltsin grudgingly gave in only after being granted immunity from prosecution from what could have been alleged to be his misdeeds. His daughter, Tatiana Dyachenko, was dismissed by the Acting President Vladimir Putin from her Kremlin post in a bid to sever ties with Yeltsin's scandal-tinged administration. The immediate post-Yeltsin era till the Presidential election on the 26th March, no doubt, will witness a bitter race among Vladimir Putin, ex-Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and communist leader Zuganov. The period will, indeed, be an interesting one for Kremlin watchers.
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