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by Dmitry Zaks
MOSCOW, July 8 (AFP) - President Vladimir Putin, in a confident debut national address Saturday, stressed that only a strong centralized state could deliver a booming economy, social justice and individual freedoms. Putin pledged a new "social contract" with Russia's long-suffering citizens and vowed to overthrow "the dictatorship of the shadow economy" that had plagued the country for years. Russia could lose another 22 million citizens over the next 15 years and degenerate from superpower to Third World status, Putin warned. "We are facing the serious threat of turning into a decaying nation," said the 47-year-old Russian leader. Restoring strong central power was key to rebuilding Russia as a great power said Putin, who stoutly defended his plans to grab back power from Russia's often-fractious regions. "Only a strong, effective, if people don't like the word strong, state, a democratic state, is capable of defending citizens' democratic and economic freedom," he said. He accused regional bosses, who are resisting plans to oust them from parliament, of favoritism and failing to follow fair business practices. "The president of Russia must have the right to establish order and be able to interfere should regional leaders break federal laws," Putin said in reference to his efforts to win the right to fire the heads of Russia's 89 regions. Putin's 50-minute speech in the Kremlin's Marble Hall impressed even some of his fiercest critics, who often interrupted state-of-nation addresses by his predecessor Boris Yeltsin with jeers. "When Yeltsin spoke, half the hall would break into laughter," said Communist Party deputy Vasily Shandybin. "Now for the first time, I was actually listening." "It was more than an annual message," said Irina Khakamada, a leader of the liberal Union of Rightist Forces (SPS). "This doctrine foresees an economic breakthrough. Russia will either be as Putin described it, or will cease to exist." Russian Orthodox patriarch Alexis II gave the address his "benediction." "The morality and spirituality of which the president spoke are indissociable from the tasks of the Orthodox church," Alexis II added. Yet Putin was careful to tread only lightly on the most sensitive issue facing his rule: the raging nine-month war in Chechnya that helped propel him to the presidency in March but which has since dragged on far longer than Putin had promised. Putin pointedly made no mention of recent suicide bombings in Chechnya that killed dozens of Russian troops, a jarring tactic that the opposition warns will only spread. That omission led Ingush President Ruslan Auchev to remark, "no one in Russia knows what to do with Chechnya." Instead, Putin presented himself as a champion of liberal economics and promised to divest the state from close links to at-times shadowy business leaders who had a close relationship with Yeltsin. "Our economic policy is very clear: less regulation and more business competition. We should not be supporting a select group of businesses but private business on the whole." His comments were aimed directly at foreign investors who have already praised the Russian government's recently adopted 10-year economic strategy but have expressed doubts whether any of its goals will be met. Touching on domestic and international criticism of his heavy-handed treatment of media freedoms, particularly concerning the Chechen war, Putin sought to convince the country that he was in full support of an open press. "Without a really free media, Russian democracy cannot survive and civil society cannot flourish," he said. However, he accused business barons who control Russian media companies of publishing stories aimed at hurting rivals and the government. "Press freedoms have developed into a prized piece for business interests and for clan warfare," said Putin, suggesting the government had to find a way to end slanted journalism. "Censorship and interference in mass media activity are prohibited by law," the president reminded both houses of parliament. "The authorities respect this principle strictly," he stressed, adding: "But censorship is not necessarily state censorship, and interference is not necessarily administrative." Liberal deputy Boris Nemtsov, once a rising star and temporarily considered an heir-apparent of Yeltsin, said: "On one hand the president says the media must be free, on the other hand he gets indignant because they are somebody's property." "But that's the way things are," Nemtsov said: "This question is not clear in the president's mind. It's worrying." |
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