By this move, Yeltsin achieved two things at the same time. Firstly, he paved the way for a take-over by Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, and secondly, he preponed the presidential elections by three months. According to the Russian constitution, if the president resigns or dies, it is the prime minister who has to don his mantle till new elections are held, mandatorily within 90 days. Yeltsin utilised both these provisions for his own gameplan.

The point is obvious. Contrary to Yeltsin's prestige which had taken a nosedive in the last few years, Putin is currently riding the crest of popularity because of his tough handling of the secessioninst threat in Chechnya, and this was reflected in the recent Duma elections in which the parties backing Putin scored the second highest percentage of votes after the Communist Party of Russian Federation (CPRF). Logically, Yeltsin must have hoped that his blue-eyed boy would win the presidential race easily in case elections are held early, before Putin's popularity graph comes down. (According to experts, Putin's first and to date only budget does not hold any promise of economic recovery, and if the Duma approved it, it was only to avoid a confrontation with the president.)

At the same time, resigning at this juncture, Yeltsin has ensured that Putin's candidature is backed by a modicum of experience as acting president when he jumps into the fray.

However, the move reflects the threat Yeltsin was perceiving from the CPRF and other Left groups. Ever since the USSR was disintegrated and Yeltsin assumed the charge in Kremlin, he had been ruling the country with a heavy hand (which earned him the nackname "Tsar Boris"), but without any success in solving the problems facing the people. On the contrary, the situation went from bad to worse, so much so that vices which had altogether disappeared, like beggary and prostitution, made their reappearance. The Russian people suddenly saw their country sliding down to the level where the poorest of the poor countries are found. Workers were not getting their wages paid for months together and were living from hand to mouth. On the other hand, the neo-rich were given a chance to make a killing. Billion of dollars were being smuggled out of the country every year and finding their way to clandestine Swiss bank accounts.

It was this situation that haunted Yeltsin throughout his career and he did everything possible to exorcise the ghost. The way he made and unmade governments and shuffled his ministers like one shuffles a pack of cards, shows how worried he was to tide over the situation that was daily getting out of his control. Putin was to date the last card Yeltsin tried. However, before Putin could demonstrate that he too was unable to solve the basic problems facing the people and join the ranks of his thrown-away predecessors like Chernomyrdin and Primakov, the war in Chechnya gave him a golden opportunity to recoup the ground -- to an extent. Hence his choice by Yeltsin as his own candidate.