Yeltsin's legacy, a decade on

In Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko rules over a presidential dictatorship that has subordinated the government and the courts to his political whims, denied citizens basic rights and civil liberties, and legislated by decree. The democratic world regards Mr. Lukashenko's promises of a free and fair presidential election next month as empty rhetoric.

Similarly, although Ukraine and Russia have passed minimal standards of democratic electoral procedure over the past decade, they too exhibit strong patterns of presidential preeminence. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma - who has been implicated in a Watergate-style tapes scandal that suggests widespread high-level corruption - names all ministers without formal input from parliament, appoints all of the country's governors, and enjoys significant discretion in dissolving the legislature. In the past year, he has sought to consolidate his authority even further.

Russian President Putin's wide-ranging powers were a gift from his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. And since taking office, Mr. Putin has taken his own steps to further concentrate executive power. The most worrisome of these may be his appointment of seven new regional "super governors," most of whom have backgrounds in the military or security services.

In the context of post-Soviet privatization, the concentration of power in the president has created systems in which economic power derives from executive branch patronage. This, in turn, has fueled massive corruption, cronyism, and nepotism. Unchecked presidential power has also diminished the importance of political parties as the locus of legitimate authority, weakened local governments, and made it difficult, if not impossible, for civic groups to affect policy. Moreover, such power has reinforced the penchant to impose intense, unchecked pressures on the media.

Although legacies of the brutal totalitarian past certainly have contributed to the dismal human rights and democratic records of most post-Soviet states, Yeltsin's legacy of concentrated presidential power may be the most important structural factor in the authoritarian evolution of the former USSR. This fact alone makes the work of the former USSR's democratic forces daunting.

For today, presidential systems in countries like Turkmenistan, Belarus, and even Russia and Ukraine are resistant to change, and any relinquishment of executive power will be hard won. This makes a clear case for reinvigorated American and European diplomacy and unambiguous moral leadership.

But diplomacy and leadership must be coupled with long-term commitments of direct assistance to the individuals and groups in civil society that struggle for political balance and simple liberty. These are the same "long-suffering people" to whom Boris Yeltsin promised "freedom once again for good" a decade ago.

Adrian Karatnycky is president and Amanda Schnetzer is a senior researcher at Freedom House. They are co-editors of 'Nations in Transit 2001' (Transaction Publishers).

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