The Kremlin’s alleged backsliding on democracy was ”very worrying”, the United States Secretary of State said on Tuesday on the eve of her meeting with the Russian president in Moscow.
Condoleezza Rice expressed increasing concern at the consolidation of power inside the Kremlin, and warned Vladimir Putin not to cling to power beyond his present term.
The comments, made to reporters travelling with her on her first official visit to Moscow, carried even greater resonance because of her status within the Bush administration, where she is one of President George Bush’s most trusted confidantes. She was also an expert on the former Soviet Union before becoming involved in Republican politics and joining the government.
In the harsher of two attacks on Putin’s reforms since Rice’s appointment, she told reporters on Tuesday that, ”trends [in Russia] have not been positive on the democratic side”.
The secretary of state had been expected to water down her past criticism of the Kremlin as the US attempts to draw Russia closer to the west with trade incentives.
She will meet Putin on Wednesday to smooth the way for a summit meeting between him and Bush, when the US president attends the 60th anniversary Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on May 9.
But speaking aboard her aircraft as she flew to the Russian capital, she told reporters: ”The centralisation of state power in the presidency at the expense of countervailing institutions like the duma [lower house of Parliament] or an independent judiciary is clearly very worrying.”
Rice’s arrival in Moscow on Tuesday night was lent added drama when her motorcade was diverted to the US embassy after a bomb threat at the hotel where she was to stay. It was a false alarm.
The Kremlin has faced criticism after Putin approved plans to replace elected regional governors with his appointees. His allies claim the reforms will strengthen state control in the fight against Chechen terrorism, but the US and Britain have warned that the Russian electorate is being sidelined.
Rice also condemned the growing state manipulation of Russia’s broadcast media on Tuesday, saying: ”The absence of an independent media on the electronic side is clearly very worrying.”
The Kremlin and British foreign ministry refused to comment on the accusations.
Her comments appeared to be a fresh sign of Washington’s crusading attitude to spreading democracy in all its bilateral relations.
She signalled a toughened US stance on Russia shortly after her appointment in January, when she called on Moscow to ”make clear to the world that it is intent on strengthening the rule of law, strengthening the role of an independent judiciary, [and] permitting a free and independent press”.
In US eyes, the prosecutions of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the billionaire critic of Putin, and other executives of the Yukos oil company, have raised doubts about the Kremlin’s commitment to democracy.
Another concern is the state’s increasing domination of television channels.
Soon after meeting Rice in Turkey two months ago, Russia’s smooth-talking Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, gave her a CD with a compilation of Russian TV reports. His attempt to prove a plurality of coverage has clearly failed. Rice said on Tuesday that the lack of media freedom was her ”principal concern”.
Her comments appeared to answer the pleas of Reporters Without Borders, the international media protection organisation which had urged her to condemn the narrowing of press freedom in Russia.
Relations between Moscow and Washington have cooled since their high point of cooperation in the ”war on terror” after September 11 2001.
At their last summit in Slovakia in February, Putin responded to Bush’s overtures by stressing that Russia would follow its own ”history and traditions” in pursuit of democracy.
But despite her harsh comments, Rice admitted after her arrival in Moscow on Tuesday night that there was a ”considerable amount of individual freedom” in Russia.
”One can’t imagine reverting back to Soviet times,” she said. – Guardian Unlimited Â