A landslide for Putin's party in Russia, and a big question

President Vladimir Putin's party secured a landslide victory in parliamentary elections Sunday, according to exit polls, after a campaign in which the Kremlin persistently hobbled the opposition. Yet while the results represent a triumph for Putin, they are also ushering in a new era of political instability for Russia.

Even as Putin has been accumulating power, he has been stirring deep uncertainty about his intentions, making it all but impossible to answer a fundamental question about Russia's future: Come the middle of next year, who will be in charge?

Putin has announced that he will not be a candidate for president in March, yielding to the constitutional limit of two consecutive terms. But he has also declared that he will retain significant influence over the country, whether as prime minister, party leader or in a vague role that has been described here as "father of the nation."

The confusion over his motives has clouded what he regards as his biggest achievement - restoring the economic strength and international status of a Russia laid low by the disarray of the 1990s after the fall of communism. It would seem difficult to describe the country as sure-footed when so much doubt hangs over something as basic as a leadership transition.

The doubt has arisen in large part because of an apparent contradiction in his political stance in recent months. He turned the Sunday election into a referendum on his leadership, so much so that billboards all over Moscow and other major cities called for people to vote "For Putin!," not for his party, United Russia.

Even the most politically apathetic Russian would be able to grasp that a politician who promotes such slogans would seem to have no interest in fading away. What's more, the Kremlin's harsh treatment of the opposition and the pressure it put on regional subordinates to reel in votes for United Russia demonstrated that it did not want rivals to take away the slightest support from Putin.

Throughout Russia in recent weeks, members of opposition parties said they had been subjected to intense harassment from the authorities, and people who worked for government agencies and companies that received state financing reported that they had been ordered to vote for United Russia.

In some areas, employees were told to get absentee ballots and mark them at their workplaces for United Russia while their supervisors watched.

With ballots from 30 percent of precincts counted, a spokesman for the Central Election Commission said, United Russia was leading with 63.6 percent and the Communists were second with 11.3 percent. Two other pro-Kremlin parties - the Liberal Democratic Party and Just Russia - had 10.6 percent and 7.1 percent.

With Putin so far unwilling to disclose what he wants to do after his term ends, infighting has broken out in the Kremlin and a rash of conspiracy theories have surfaced in a country with no shortage of them in the first place. Some of his allies have called for him to find legal loopholes to remain in office. Others have speculated that he will install a trusted aide as president whom he will manipulate or force to resign after only a few months so that he can again take over. It is considered a given here that whomever he endorses will win the presidency.

Putin's aides acknowledge that, at this moment of political conquest, the situation has left the political class on edge. For hundreds of years, authority in Russia has emanated from the throne, whether the czar or the Communist Party general secretary or the Russian president. Now people are wondering to whom to show fealty, Putin or the person who is to take his place inside the Kremlin.

"Of course, individuals are nervous," said Putin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov. "I would not position it as the last battle of the beasts living in the Kremlin. People are on the eve of a completely new period. Of course, that never contributes to a comfortable environment. So in this understanding, yes, everyone is nervous."

Peskov hastened to add that despite this unease, he did not believe that the situation was unstable. "What we have to do is just wait and see," he said.

The tension has been exacerbated because of the way that Putin has clamped down on political discourse. In a typical transition period in a democracy, interest groups can publicly form alliances with candidates and parties, who then seek the support of the populace. Witness the current presidential campaign in the United States.

But in Russia today, decisive interest groups - especially business oligarchies that control much of the economy or regional politicians who have their own fiefdoms - dare not publicly engage in the debate over succession, for fear of incurring the Kremlin's retribution. As a result, the wrangling is forced behind the scenes, which only distorts it and intensifies the sense of intrigue.

Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of Yabloko, one of the mainstream liberal parties that have opposed Putin, said the president had put himself in a bind because he wants to retain power but knows that if he tries to obtain a third term immediately, he will be seen as illegitimate by some in Russia and abroad.

"He has created, really, an authoritarian system, in which he is like a hill in the desert, and nobody is around," Yavlinsky said. "Now time has come to make a transfer of power, and he really, really has no idea how to do that. And nobody else has any idea. And his character is such that he has no confidence in anybody. So he creates a procedure that is abnormal. That is why he is in real difficulty.

"And that is why there is this instability now, and why the bureaucracy is very nervous."

Still, not everyone believes that the disquiet will last.

Stanislav Belkovsky, a prominent political analyst here, said people misunderstood Russian history and tradition. They are in awe of Putin's high popularity ratings and fail to understand that once he leaves office, his aura will fade and authority will naturally transfer to the new president, Belkovsky said.

Additionally, many of Russia's problems, including inflation and corruption, are likely to worsen next year and the new president will most likely try to shift blame for them to Putin, damaging his standing, Belkovsky said.

"Putin's personal role in all this should not be overestimated," he said. "He is not a charismatic leader, like Mussolini or Franco. He is a traditional leader of traditional legitimacy, which is closely connected to the Kremlin itself. He has carried out his job, and the next leader will be as legitimate as Putin is. In a little more than three months, we will start to forget about Putin. In a little more than three months, Putin himself will become a target."