After the dismantling of the former USSR. President Yeltsin took over power. He was elected with 57% of popular vote but lost that popularity after a traumatic series of economic crises. After vowing to reform the Russian economy, Yeltsin turned to the advice of Western economists, and Western institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the U.S. Treasury Department. This policy recipe came to be known as the "Washington Consensus" or "shock therapy," a combination of measures intended to liberalize prices and stabilize the state's budget. The IMF approved a $22.6 billion emergency loan on July 13 1998. The reforms also devastated the living standards of much of the population, especially the groups dependent on Soviet-era state subsidies and welfare entitlement programs. Through the 1990s, Russia's GDP fell by 50 percent, vast sectors of the economy were wiped out, inequality and unemployment grew dramatically, while incomes fell. Tens of millions of Russians were plunged into poverty.
Part of Yeltsin's big economic push was promoting privatization as a way of spreading ownership of shares in former state enterprises as widely as possible to create political support for his economic reforms. In the West, privatization was viewed as the key to the transition from communism in Eastern Europe, ensuring a quick dismantling of the Soviet-era planned economy to make way for 'free market reforms. Effectively giving away valuable state assets to a small group of tycoons in finance, industry, energy, telecommunications, and the media who came to be known as the "Russian oligarchs" in the mid-1990s.
By summer 1996, substantial ownership shares were acquired in major firms at very low prices by the
"oligarchs." Boris Berezovsky, who controlled major stakes in several banks and the national media, emerged as one of Yeltsin's most prominent backers. Along with Berezovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Roman Abramovich, Vladimir Potanin, Vladimir Bogdanov, Rem Viakhirev, Vagit Alekperov, Viktor Chernomyrdin, Victor Vekselberg, and Mikhail Fridman emerged as Russia's most powerful and prominent oligarchs. By the time Yeltsin left office, his approval rating stood at about 2%. Yeltsin then hand-picked Vladimir Putin - a former East-German based KGB operative - to take over from him. Does this sound familiar?
When Putin took over he was extremely concerned about the ongoing demographic problems, such as the death rate being higher than the birth rate and immigration rate, cyclical poverty, and housing concerns within the Russian Federation. In 2005, four "national projects" were launched in the fields of health care, education, housing and agriculture. In his May 2006 annual speech, Putin proposed increasing maternity benefits and prenatal care for women. "Real incomes have been growing by about 10 percent a year, and that can't fail to be visible to the population," says Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, an economist with Troika Dialogue, a Moscow investment bank. Putin also had Russia pay its IMF debt ahead of time.
One of the most controversial aspects of Putin's second term was the prosecution of Russia's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, President of Yukos oil company, for fraud and tax evasion. While much of the international press saw this as a reaction against a man who was funding political opponents of the Kremlin, both liberal and Communist, the Russian government has argued that Khodorkovsky was engaged in corrupting a large segment of the Duma to prevent changes in the tax code aimed at taxing windfall profits and closing offshore tax evasion vehicles. Many of the initial privatizations, including that of Yukos, are widely believed to have been fraudulent (Yukos, valued at some $30bn in 2004, had been privatized for $110 million), and like other oligarchic groups, the Yukos-Menatep name has been frequently tarred with accusations of links to criminal organizations.
In the recent years however, the political philosophy of Putin's administration has been described as "sovereign democracy". The political term recently gained wide acceptance within Russia itself and rallied various political elites around it. According to its supporters, the policy of the President must above all, be supported by the popular majority in Russia itself and not be governed from outside of the country; such popular support constitutes the founding principle of a democratic
society.
According to public opinion surveys conducted by Levada Center, Putin's approval rating is 80% as of May 2007. It started at 31% in August 1999, rose to 80% by November 1999. Currently 70%. With most Russians asking him to run for a third term. He is, so far, saying no to a third term.
The $60 million question therefore, is: "Can Yar' Adua be like Putin? You be the judge!!! Based on his early pronouncements and actions I think he could be.
As I keep saying, we cannot begin to address, in a fundamental manner, the problems of the economy, until we successfully tackle the power and energy issue. It is critical to all my plans. So I am more interested in how much gas we can tap for domestic use than what we can get for export. We must power this economy, President Yar'Adua said.
He directed the NNPC to expeditiously come up with a workable plan to ensure adequate gas supply to existing and new power generation plants. President Yar'Adua also said he would tackle the Niger Delta problem by meeting the developmental challenges in the region and enforcing law and order.
"My plan is for a massive intervention and after consulting with all the stakeholders, we will take our plan to the National Assembly so everyone can buy in. Once we can address the development issues, it would be easy to tackle the criminal element of the problem" he said.
Data Source C.S. Monitor, JR List, Thisday and Wikipedia
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