Posted on 06/09/2005 6:37:57 AM PDT by KiraZ
On a cold afternoon in the winter of 2004, Vladimir Putin summoned his long-serving prime minister to his Kremlin office.
"Unfortunately," Putin told him, "I have to fire you." Mikhail Kasyanov was stunned. The Russian president gave no reason for the abrupt dismissal. Facing a national vote on his reelection just two weeks away, Putin had chosen a surprising time to shift governments. As he absorbed the news, Kasyanov assumed he would have to leave after the election. No, Putin corrected the prime minister. "I mean now."
The power of paranoia had gripped the Kremlin. For four years, the men around Putin had done everything possible to guarantee that no one could challenge his authority. The government had taken over national television, emasculated the power of the country's governors, converted parliament into a rubber stamp, jailed the main financier of the political opposition and intimidated the most potent would-be challengers from entering the race. The Kremlin had proved so successful in eliminating competition that Putin's token competitors were now plotting to drop out en masse to protest the manipulation. And Putin's aides feared such a move could result in turnout on election day falling below the legal minimum. If that happened, the prime minister would become president for a month before a new election, putting him potentially in a position to do to Putin what Putin had done to his rivals -- a remote prospect but still untenable for a leader who believed no detail of democracy was too small to be managed.
"In his mentality," one senior Putin aide said later, "every risk should be minimized to zero."
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(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Oh gads, it's more ignorance in print. First off, it is customary in parlimentary governments in Europe, to fire the administration before the elections and then "rehire" them after wards with changes. Second, Kasyanov was a hold over from Yeltsin and a bought man by the oligarches who opposed all reforms, to include the flat tax. Funny how those little facts don't make it into hit pieces like this, isn't it?
ping
Where exactly was/is this customary? Cite examples, please...
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