December 26, 2014

Dec. 31, 1999

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Twenty-five years ago, on December 31, 1999, Boris Yeltsin resigned as president of the Russian Federation and shifted power to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Paul A. Goble of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), analyzed the significance of the transition of power.

Russia’s relationship with the West, Mr. Goble explained, had been based more on personal rather than political levels – with individuals meeting with the leader in Moscow. It was a practice that could be traced to Soviet times and continued under Mr. Yeltsin.

The reliance on a personality in Moscow and the inevitable change requires Moscow to establish new personal ties that take time and energy, especially the intense deliberations about what kind of relationship it should be. President Putin, Mr. Goble noted, would have a tough time as a former KGB officer and due to actions in Chechnya. Western leaders will have to answer to politicians and analysts who see Mr. Putin as an openly authoritarian figure opposed to many Western goals.

“Moscow’s opposition to the NATO campaign in Yugoslavia and its moves to seize Pristina ahead of allied forces, its increasing ties with Iran, Iraq and other radically anti-Western countries, as well as its war in Chechnya and open discrimination against people from the Caucasus are all policies that many in the West disagree with and oppose,” Mr. Goble explained.

With Mr. Yeltsin gone, it was expected that Western leaders would more frequently raise their voices against Russia’s aggressive actions. The fact that Mr. Yeltsin was unable to complete his term and that a new democratic election did not take place immediately (the election was held within 90 days) had raised speculation that his exit was due to pressure from Mr. Putin, who likely guaranteed that the outgoing president would not face criminal charges for his past actions if he resigned quietly.

“Even if such speculation is baseless,” Mr. Goble noted, “it seems certain to become part of the internal debate as Western countries decide how to deal with the new president of Russia, a man who has defined himself only to the extent of launching a war in the Caucasus and denouncing the West’s efforts to end the bloodletting in Kosovo.”

Many Western governments, he added, would be certain to view the transition of power from Mr. Yeltsin to Mr. Putin as evidence that Russia had not made as much progress toward democracy as they had hoped or even claimed.

Russian parliamentary elections in early December 1999 gave Mr. Putin the support he needed to succeed Mr. Yeltsin in the presidential election. He was re-elected in 2004, then switched roles with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, with the latter taking the presidency in 2009. The two then reversed their positions in 2012 at the time of another presidential election.

Prior to Mr. Yeltsin’s resignation, the ruble had been devalued nearly 70 percent in 1998 against the dollar. Russia’s financial collapse was blamed on the failed policies of Mr. Yeltsin and widespread corruption, with nearly one-third of the shrinking population of Russia living below the poverty line. Mr. Yeltsin described his decision to send the Russian army into Chechnya – which had cost hundreds of thousands of lives – as his greatest mistake.

Source: “A transforming resignation: Boris Yeltsin leaves the scene,” by Paul A. Goble (RFE/RL), The Ukrainian Weekly, January 9, 2000.

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