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Page 3
Your main liability, indeed, is what you have yet to do: acquire a sense of who's important and what's important in taking care of a nation. As I'm writing this, you're only ending your fourth month at the head of the government, and that after a whopping four months as a minister. Before that, you were a successful banker and occasional politician in Nizhni Novgorod.
That, and there may be some carjackers in the neighborhood: your own boss felt it necessary to say to a recent meeting of senior officers, "We are strong enough to curb all plans for seizing power and other extremist plans." And rumours elsewhere hint of a possible takeover attempt by security forces. This is the Big Time, Sergei Vladilenovich. The stakes have never been higher for everyone. The upside of your having little experience is that you start with a clean slate. You're unthinkable as a presidential candidate for 2000, anyway, but maybe not for 2004 depending on your performance. Yeltsin's so sick and absent so often you pretty much have to be the acting president much of the time anyway. If Russia pulls out of this, we'll all know who was at the helm day in and day out. And if Russia doesn't pull out of this, and if Yeltsin falls, so do you. Probably forever. The Duma does consider some things more important than impeaching your President. They're reconvening the third week in August to discuss your stabilization plan for the country. That's probably your best chance to start the country's turnaround, and your administration's future with the Duma, on the right foot. And, in the meantime, have a happy 36th birthday this Sunday. And a thoughtful one. You have the bulk of your life ahead of you, and you're already at the right hand of one of the most important seats of power in the world, a seat that truly needs some good help right now. This summer and fall may make a difference for years - perhaps decades - to come for you, for Russia and for the world. I remain Jeff Deutsch
The copyright of the article An Open Letter to Premier Sergei Kiriyenko - Page 3 in Russian Politics is owned by . Permission to republish An Open Letter to Premier Sergei Kiriyenko - Page 3 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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