Luzkhov Lashes Out At Yeltsin As
Anti-Kremlin Bloc Shapes Up
MOSCOW, Aug 22, 1999 -- (Agence France
Presse) Moscow Mayor Yury Luzkhov lashed out
at President Boris Yeltsin as a weak leader
Saturday as he lined up a list of well-known
politicians, entertainers and military leaders to run in
the December parliamentary elections.
"The country is being robbed in a way which is
unprecedented in its cynicism and permissiveness,"
Luzkhov said in an address to his Fatherland
(Otechestvo) movement.
"Russia's weak authority is the only reason behind
this," he said, according to the Interfax news
agency.
Russia's leadership "has turned into a regime which
people are unable to understand and which poses a
threat to the country," Luzkhov was quoted as saying.
He spoke as some 400 members of the All Russia grouping of regional
leaders met in the Urals city of Ufa and elected the governor of the
Saint-Petersburg region, Vladimir Yakovlev, as their leader.
Fatherland and All Russia have joined forces in a centrist coalition to
challenge Yeltsin supporters in the December 19 elections to the Russian
State Duma, the Lower House of parliament.
Former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov, who enjoys the highest approval
rating among Russian politicians, on Tuesday announced that he would lead
the list of candidates of the All Russia-Fatherland bloc.
Luzkhov is to hold the number two spot followed by Yakovlev.
"We need to establish a government which will answer to the country and to
its people," Luzkhov said.
"The founders of the broad centrist coalition have succeeded in uniting
healthy forces which rule out extremism and extremes and are capable of
resolving tasks," he added.
In Moscow, delegates pieced together a list of 350 candidates topped by
Primakov, Luzkhov and Yakovlev, who will seek election in the 450-seat
Duma, which is currently dominated by communists and their allies.
The list includes former ministers Rmazan Abdulatipov, Georgy Boos and
Tatyana Dmitriyeva as well as film-maker Stanislav Govorukhin, General
Boris Gromov, who led Soviet forces out of Afghanistan, actors Alexander
Kalyagin and Oleg Tabakov, and the coach of the national football team
Oleg Romantsev.
A final list of candidates is due to be approved at the founding congress of
the All Russia-Fatherland bloc on August 28, ITAR-TASS said. ((c) 1999
Agence France Presse)
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