Russia faces a major transition over the next year, as parliamentary and presidential elections are scheduled to install a new political leadership. Whether this will keep existing policies and top officials in place or break more or less radically from them, has now emerged as the major issue to be decided by Russian voters. Yesterday's announcement by President Yeltsin that he is appointing Mr Vladimir Putin as prime minister was explicitly linked to his candidature as president next year, which he has now declared. It came days after a potentially very powerful political bloc linking non-communist forces in Moscow and the Russian provinces was launched. That initiative is seen by commentators as provoking desperation among Mr Yeltsin's inner circle, which includes some extremely powerful and rich people fearful of losing office, and who would thereby become exposed to charges of corruption and misappropriation of public funds. They have put forward Mr Putin as someone who can provide continuity. In Mr Yeltsin's words, he is "capable of uniting society, based on the broadest political forces, to ensure the continuation of reforms in Russia".
Mr Yeltsin has survived in office and was elected president for a second time in 1996, precisely because he was seen as the only alternative to the communists, despite the many reservations about his personal qualifications for the job. The extremely threadbare experience of economic reform and the president's personal incapacity since then, have made his leadership and policies much less credible, as Russia's economic fortunes, welfare and international standing have declined. Popular disenchantment with market reforms and nepotism have helped to make the communist opposition into the most powerful force in the Duma. But despite this they have not led to a complete rejection of reforms or to outright support for a reversion to authoritarian autarky and economic isolation.
That is why the emergence of a non-communist coalition bloc linking the popular mayor of Moscow, Mr Yuri Luzhkov, the governor of St Petersburg, Mr Vladimir Yakovlev and the All-Russia group of regional leaders is so significant. All the more so because of the extremely positive response to the initiative by the former prime minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, who maintains his popularity despite having fallen out of favour with Mr Yeltsin's circle. They will have to head him off if Mr Putin is to stand a chance of succeeding. The new prime minister has a strong background in intelligence and administration, much less so in political and media skills. He has a year to prove himself and extremely powerful backers among Mr Yeltsin's circle to project him. Despite their rooted factionalism, nepotism, personal authoritarianism and frequent xenophobic nationalism, Russian politics are on balance in better shape as a result of these developments. They offer the ordinary voter the prospect of a more effective choice in the parliamentary and presidential elections over the next year. What they decide will affect their European and other neighbours for years to come as Russia's politics, economics and defence policies remain so uncertain after more than fifteen years of efforts to reform them.