Putin uses terrorism threat to tighten grip on Russia

FACED with the most serious threat to Russia’s national security since the demise of the Soviet Union, President Vladimir Putin has failed to resist the temptation of using the occasion to further strengthen his grip on Russia.

He has cynically announced a package of dramatic changes in Russia's elections system that will have little, if any direct impact on the authorities' capabilities to fight terrorism.

His reaction to the murder of more than 400 people in Beslan has been to: Establish a special federal commission on the volatile North Caucasus.

Restore the federal ministry on nationalities.

Announce a new "system of national security" to nip terrorist attacks in the bud.

However, more cynically, the plan also includes such measures as changing Russian elections laws to have the president nominate governors. The governors would be elected by regional parliaments rather than by popular elections as is the case now.

Also all members of the lower house of the federal parliament would be elected from party lists on a proportional basis, eliminating individual races in single-mandate districts altogether.

Experts say there are two apparent constitutional violations here. Putin's plan to nominate governors himself appears to conflict Article 77, according to Andrei Ryabov, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Centre, said yesterday. Amendment of this article will require endorsement of two-thirds of Russia's 89 regional legislation assemblies, according to the Constitution.

Nomination of governors by the president would also violate the spirit of Article 32, which safeguards the right of Russian citizens to run and get elected to public offices.

The fact that it will be up to the president to hand-pick the candidates would hinder Russian citizens' ability to run for office, Ryabov said.

There are strong doubts among experts, however, on whether these changes which the Kremlin had been reportedly working on months before the spate of terror attacks in late August and early September would make the Russian state more prepared to fight terror.

"These measures make it more convenient for Putin to run the country ... but I don't quite understand how these measures will help in the war on terror," said Ivan Safranchuk, director of the Moscow office of the Washington-based Centre for Defence Information.

Overall, his anti-terrorism plan falls short of a comprehensive response by offering little clues on whether and how government agencies will be reformed.