Putin's rise in Russia not such a miracle

By Ron Popeski

MOSCOW (Reuters): The rise of Vladimir Putin, on course to win Russia's presidential election, seems little short of a miracle engineered over seven months by a figure plucked from obscurity by his predecessor, an ailing Boris Yeltsin.

But analysts say the acting president's impending victory will have been achieved by carefully exploiting post-Soviet feelings of fear and humiliation.

With about 70 percent of the vote counted in Sunday's election, Putin appeared to have built an unassailable lead, crossing the 50 percent barrier to win without the need for a run-off vote.

Nearly 10 years after the end of communism, Russia's 145 million people often feel subject to mass humiliation caused by acute poverty, recurrent political instability, regional revolts, reduced world influence and rule by a leader in poor health.

Putin may still rely on a high military profile in rebel Chechnya to maintain his popularity, but his appeal now extends to virtually every sector of Russian society as the man best placed to lift Russia out of an economic and political morass.

"His image has broadened, though the base remains people's fears. At first, they embraced him as a war leader and then as a man to restore order, the antithesis of Yeltsin's image," said Igor Bunin, director of the Center for Political Technology.

"Then he introduced a human element and compensation of sorts. NATO and the West were enemies, that faded. We dismissed foreign credits as unnecessary, now we pursue them. We scored victories in Chechnya, so we talk to the West as an equal."

Putin's ascent has been undoubtedly fast and unrelenting.

As director of the FSB domestic intelligence agency, his rating stood at 2 percent when Yeltsin appointed him as his prime minister and pointed to him as his preferred successor.

That figure crept up as he oversaw an operation to thwart a Chechen rebel incursion into adjacent Dagestan. He soothed city dwellers traumatized by deadly bomb blasts through blunt -- some might say crude -- vows to nab the perpetrators and dismissals of suggestions that undercover services might be behind them.

A bit of luck with the economy -- higher oil prices, a stable currency and improved growth prospects -- also helped.

By December's general election, Putin's influence was such that his mere endorsement was sufficient to ensure second place for the Unity bloc, its candidates and policies all but unknown.

Potential rivals for the presidency, mainly former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, were swept aside -- both by a concerted media campaign against them and by Putin's tough stand on Chechen "terrorism".

"It's not very important now who personally did this," said Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Endowment think tank, referring to the five city bomb blasts that killed nearly 300 people.

"But without this, it would have been impossible for the Kremlin to fight, to beat Primakov and Luzhkov in the parliamentary elections and it would be impossible to create the phenomenon of Putin in the presidential election."

The path was cleared for Putin's run at the presidency when Yeltsin, his speech and gait uncertain and his popularity rock bottom, stepped down on New Year's Eve.

He has since made few mistakes in what became a shadow of a campaign, formally declining to take part in debates or rallies but criss-crossing the country by car, suburban train and even fighter plane to conduct "working visits".

Communist Gennady Zyuganov, his nearest rival, performed better than expected with just over 30 percent of the vote, despite forecasts that he had little chance of expanding what was seen as a shrinking, aging electorate.

The also-rans have spent much of their time trying to ingratiate themselves with the runaway leader.

Failure to present a detailed program did him no harm.

Speeches broadcast on television calling -- in broad terms -- for an overhaul of institutions, a revamped justice system and free business opportunities for all clearly hit the spot.

Events which might have chipped away at the standing of other leaders left Putin unscathed -- like rising casualties in Chechnya and the failure to finish off the rebels.

"Russian society is tired of the Chechnya problem and Putin is seen as the only one capable of finishing it off once and for all as he promised," Bunin said.

"People are even ready now to accept casualties. Whereas in the first war (1994-1996), women's logic prevailed with mothers pleading for their sons, male logic takes precedence now."

Also quashed quickly were suggestions that his clear run to the top might be hit by qualms over his past as a spy for the feared KGB and head of the FSB, a post-Soviet successor.

"In Russia, intelligence bodies are liked and respected. It's a plus rather than a minus for him," said Sergei Karaganov, deputy director of the Institute of Europe.

"People in the KGB and other intelligence bodies were generally less corrupt and more efficient than elsewhere."

A concerted attempt to show Putin's human side -- including a television introduction to the family poodle -- has helped smooth the image of the calculating intelligence agent.

But much of the change has come from Putin himself.

He is more at ease with crowds as election date nears, has held his own and more with foreign visitors like British Prime Minister Tony Blair and eloquently -- if cryptically -- offered his vision of a Russia freed from post-Soviet humiliation.

The contrast with the stumbling, unpredictable Yeltsin of later years could not be more in Putin's favor.

"People were ready for Putin -- a man speaking and acting in a normal fashion, who seemed to know how to do things after four or five years of rule by an ailing man and very strange characters known as oligarchies," said Karaganov, referring to influential Russian businessmen. "He was simply in the right place."