=============================== Segodnya, 14 Oct 1999
Russia Today press summaries
Segodnya
14 October 1999
Muzhiks Without BAB [Berezovsky]
LEBED-PUTIN BLOC WILL COME TO THE KREMLIN AND KILL THE "BEARS"
Summary
At his recent news conference in Moscow, former presidential candidate and [current] Krasnoyarsk Governor Lebed publicly distanced from famous tycoon Berezovsky, demonstratively offered his support to premier Putin and rejected his party's participation in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Putin could face dismissal any time because everyone knows how unpredictable Boris Yeltsin is. And Lebed, who believes that "by the end of November, all political elite in Russia will be stained from top to bottom with compromising materials and will not survive the Duma campaign", is ready to invite Putin to join his movement. A bloc of Lebed and Putin will easily win the Duma elections as the potential electorate of Vladimir Zhirinovsky will inevitably come to them. Besides, Lebed's "muzhiks", if separated from Berezovsky, will leave no chance for Sergey Shoigu's "Unity", loyal to "the Family".
Thus, Putin's dismissal will become the last and fatal mistake of President Yeltsin.
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