Can Russia Recover Without President Yeltsin?
PAUL KANGAS: The White House won't comment on the Yeltsin resignation rumors. But the president's national security adviser did voice concern for the policy direction Russia's government takes. And of course, the United States doesn't choose Russia's president. Russia chooses its president. But, what if it isn't Boris Yeltsin? Dennis Moore reports.
DENNIS MOORE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, CORRESPONDENT: Boris Yeltsin may still be in office. But it's doubtful he's still in power. And even more doubtful he'll be in office next week to meet President Clinton.
ANDERS ASLUND, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: He might be talking to acting president Viktor Chernomyrdin.
MOORE: Yeltsin said he needed a heavyweight like Chernomyrdin to deal with Russia's financial crisis. What he got, according to many Western observers, is the man who created the crisis in the first place.
ASLUND: It's like President Suharto coming back in the midst of the Indonesian crisis to salvage Indonesia.
MOORE: In the parallels to Indonesia and crony capitalism dote in with the runs on Russian banks. Sergei Kiriyenko, appointed prime minister by Yeltsin just five months ago, was leading a government of reformers.
MATTHEW SHERWOOD, ECONOMIST, PLANECON, INC.: The reformers had a plan to actually start implementing some bankruptcies, closing down businesses and banks.
MOORE: Businesses and banks owned largely by Yeltsin cronies.
SHERWOOD: Through the transition of the '90s, these are the people who gained control of the major assets in the Russian economy.
MOORE: They got Yeltsin reelected in 1996 and weren't about to surrender their control of the economy or of their assets to Kiriyenko and the reformers.
SHERWOOD: With the, basically the financial interest groups winning out, now taking control of the economy by taking over control of policy, it is a political problem that I don't see being resolved.
MOORE: The reformers were the last of Yeltsin's political supporters. And now, he's betrayed them.
ASLUND: And I can't understand why he committed this kind of political suicide. This looks as if he was just out of it for health reasons. We might have seen a soft coup.
MOORE: And if that soft coup means Boris Yeltsin is no longer even metaphorically standing on Russia's tanks.
SANDY BERGER, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: You have a broad range of interests in the security area, in the foreign policy area.
MOORE: It matters a lot to this country who wins. Dennis Moore, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.
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