Dorenko’s treatment of Primakov was equally mesmerizing. In one of his most memorable programmes, he first accused Primakov of organizing an assassination attempt on Eduard Shevardnadze, Georgia’s president, then – without much of a link – he showed bloody surgery being performed on someone in a Russian hospital. This, he said, was the kind of operation that Primakov was supposed to undergo in Switzerland. All Primakov had, in fact, was a standard hip replacement, but Dorenko turned it into a lengthy and graphic report in an operation theatre. It was not even Primakov’s leg that was being cut up on television – but that hardly mattered.
For the appetizer, Dorenko told the audience, whose average income was $200 a month and most of whom had to put up with decrepit Soviet hospitals, that Primakov’s treatment in an elite hospital in Berne could cost $45,000. ‘Nobody here asks about the origins of the money. If any of you is planning to have the same operation the hospital will accept these tens of thousands of dollars in any convertible currency…’ Then, for the main course, Dorenko produced gory details of the surgery itself and the risks it carried. ‘First the doctors remove the top of the hip. As you can see it is fragile and easily crumbles. Then they replace it with an artificial joint. Part of this artificial hip is joined to the pelvic bone by screws. Then, as you can see, doctors widen the hollow space inside the hip bone and connect the second part of the artificial hip which is then fixed with cement.’
The camera showed a bloodied leg and surgeons drilling and banging on the bone with a hammer, while casually discussing the latest football results. Bang, bang, bang. ‘This operation makes quite a morbid impression on a lay spectator,’ Dorenko’s correspondent told the audience, ‘but the drill and the hammer are absolutely necessary for such surgery.’ As a final nail, Dorenko argued that if one of Primakov’s hips had given way, the other one would have to be replaced soon as well. The second operation, however, might wait until after the presidential elections, which meant Primakov would be masking problems with his health. ‘But once he becomes president, he can leisurely take care of his health – for the next four years.’ Dorenko’s programme left no doubts: Primakov was as old and unfit as Yeltsin. ‘Since Primakov wants to be our leader, a full analogy with Yeltsin is completely justified,’ Dorenko concluded cheerfully.36 With Yeltsin’s rating deteriorating along with his health, such an ‘analogy’ was more damaging to Primakov’s political form than any surgery.
Primakov was so outraged by this demagoguery that he felt compelled to call and complain to Kiselev, Dorenko’s rival at Itogi. Kiselev was on air and Primakov’s call was put straight through to the studio. ‘I am glad you are still on air, I have a chance to respond to the programme I just watched,’ Primakov said. ‘Do you mean our programme?’ Kiselev asked, pleased with such a high-profile response. ‘I mean Dorenko’s programme – known for its “truthfulness, benevolence and integrity”,’ Primakov said. Kiselev was taken aback by this tactlessness, but Primakov continued: ‘He said I was gravely ill and awaiting a serious operation. I want to reassure everyone that this is untrue… And also did you see that episode with Shevardnadze?’ ‘Unfortunately, I have not,’ said Kiselev, live, ‘I was myself on air.’ ‘Never mind,’ sighed Primakov. If Dorenko did not finish off Primakov, Primakov did so himself. The call made him look ridiculous and weak.
If anyone was watching Kiselev’s Itogi, it was certainly time to switch over to Dorenko’s show. Kiselev, with his slow, deliberating manner, was no match for Dorenko’s circus. It was like using a sword against a machine gun.
When he was not destroying Primakov and Luzhkov, Dorenko was interviewing and extolling Putin in every other programme, presenting him as the only alternative for the post of the president. At the beginning of Dorenko’s anti-Luzhkov and anti-Primakov campaign, Primakov’s rating was 32 per cent. Fifteen programmes later, it had fallen to just 8 per cent. Luzhkov’s rating fell from 16 per cent to 2 per cent. Putin’s rating rose from 2 per cent to 36 per cent.
Berezovsky praised Putin for providing the ‘continuity of power’ that would enable him, Berezovsky, ‘to fulfil himself in Russia’. What attracted him to Putin, he said, was Putin’s pledge not to reopen the question of privatization. ‘Many people are unhappy about how property has been distributed. Even the billionaires are unhappy, because they think that a neighbour-billionaire got more than his peer. But Putin understands that any redistribution of property will result in real bloodshed.’ He likened the situation with Putin to the 1996 elections when the oligarchs put their differences aside and agreed to support Yeltsin. ‘Today there is a clear understanding that Putin is a man who should be supported by society, including the oligarchs.’37
Chubais, Berezovsky’s old nemesis, agreed, stating on NTV’s Itogi: ‘If elections were held today, there is no other candidate other than Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. There is no point in anyone else putting himself forward.’ The impression was partly created by the media: Pavlovsky planted the idea of ‘Putin’s majority’ in the media – even when Putin’s rating was below 50 per cent. But one thing was clear: Putin, who had no political programme, clear ideology, or political party, hit key expectations and responded to frustrations which had been building up in Russia for some time. Kiselev on Itogi stopped showing Putin’s rating altogether. Olson recalled Kiselev telling him: ‘I don’t understand these figures. And what I don’t understand cannot be.’38 Kiselev was not the only one, however, who found Putin’s rating incomprehensible. How could this unremarkable man with no charisma, unmemorable features and a weak voice be seriously seen as a successor to Yeltsin?
But it was precisely the contrast with Yeltsin that made Putin ‘sellable’ to the Russian public. The popular support for Yeltsin, boosted by the threat of the communist victory in 1996, started to decline as soon as that threat was removed and was completely undermined by the 1998 crisis. Nearly half of the country felt that Yeltsin’s years in power had brought nothing good to the country; what they had brought was economic crisis, inflation and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Only a quarter of Russians credited him with freedoms and democracy. The majority wanted him to go.
The trick was to transform Yeltsin’s negative rating into Putin’s positive one. In order to do so, Putin had to be portrayed at once as Yeltsin’s opponent but also as someone who was anointed by him. ‘Our aim was first to mobilize the remaining Yeltsin electorate and then the anti-Yeltsin electorate which was split between several parties. Putin was in an ideal position – he was already in power, which always appeals to Russian voters – but also looked opposite to Yeltsin,’ Pavlovsky explained.39