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Sunday Morning News

Russian Voters Head to the Polls

Aired March 26, 2000 - 8:16 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We won't know for some hours how the presidential voting is going in Russia. As we said, the election spans 11 time zones.

Joining me now is Toby Gati, former National Security Council official who served as White House adviser on Russia, Ukraine and the Eurasian states. Toby Gati is in our Washington bureau this morning. And good morning, Toby.

TOBY GATI, FMR. NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL MEMBER: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: Let's begin with Putin. And it's pretty much a shoe- in, wouldn't you say?

GATI: I think Putin is definitely going to win as president. The question is does he win on the first round, meaning today, or is there going to be a runoff? And I think there's a lot of pressure, certainly within his own team, to have a win today because a mandate is what Putin needs. He doesn't come with a major financial base or political base and he's really got to start on not just acting as an acting president, but tell the people what he's going to do as president.

PHILLIPS: You talk about a base. Let's talk about his background with the KGB. Does this make you nervous? Do you think this is a good thing?

GATI: I don't think it's a good thing. It's his background. He worked in Germany. I think he has a healthy suspicion of perhaps the motives of the United States and I think that's going to influence some of what he does and says. But I think it also has made him part of a professional organization and an organization that identifies a goal and goes after it.

Now, the question is what is that goal going to be? Is it to make Russia a strong power so that it can assert itself and be more like the former Soviet Union? That would not be good. Is he going to recreate a state that provides its people with a better standard of living and reduces the power of the oligarchs and others who have really robbed the Russian state and made it dysfunctional? That would be all right.

So I think the jury is still out on what Putin is going to do but, yes, I think there are many people in Washington who are very concerned. Certainly his conduct of the war in Chechnya has raised a great deal of concern.

PHILLIPS: Now, you mentioned the standard of living and I wanted to go to the war zone of Chechnya. Many blame Putin for the death and the destruction and the war. Could this affect the election?

GATI: I don't think so. I think most Russians believe that his handling of Chechnya has been right. There's still a great deal of support for the war which, of course, would diminish the more Russians are killed, another reason he wants his mandate today and not in a month or so. But I think most Russians feel that he's pursued a successful war. Russia's military has performed, in their eyes, quite well, and I think he's restored a sense of pride and honor, which a lot of Russians are very grateful for and certainly they prefer his handling of the war, his getting in a fighter plane and flying to the war zone to Yeltsin and the way Yeltsin ran Russia and the way he ran the first Chechen war.

PHILLIPS: The government that Putin is said to be planning to install is a "modernized Stalinism." How do you respond to that? What do you think of that?

GATI: Well, that's not a compliment and that's what was said by people who are concerned that he's going to be more repressive and authoritarian, pressure on the press to say nice things about the government, pressure on business people. The Internet is another area where people are concerned that they're going to be monitoring it. The KGB obviously has developed tactics for keeping eyes on people over many years.

But I think modernized Stalinism, people were trying to say that there are not going to be camps or anything like that. It's just going to be we're watching you. But I think that that's a view that's not shared by a majority of Russians, who think of him more as a modernized, strong leader, not a Stalin, but somebody who's going to restore Russia's prestige.

But the danger is out there that Russia will revert to some of the patterns that belong to the Soviet period and frankly should be kept in history.

PHILLIPS: Toby Gati, former national security official, thanks so much for joining us this morning on those issues concerning Russia and the election.

GATI: Thank you.

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