Russian Duma says, "NYET,NYET HELL NYET..." Black Monday tomorrow.
FOCUS-Russia Communists set to
reject PM candidacy
(Adds more comment from party leaders, Berezovsky)
By Gareth Jones
MOSCOW, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Gennady Zyuganov, whose Communist Party is the biggest faction
in Russia's State Duma lower house of parliament, said on Sunday his party would not support
Viktor Chernomyrdin's nomination as prime minister on Monday.
''Tomorrow... the whole faction will vote against Chernomyrdin,'' he told NTV commercial
television's Itogi current affairs programme.
''Mr Chernomyrdin is an accomplice with (President Boris) Yeltsin in the destruction of the past five
years (of Russia's economy),'' he said.
Zyuganov said his party's presidium had unanimously agreed on Sunday that the Communists should
not sign a compromise deal drawn up at the weekend by Chernomyrdin and parliamentary chiefs
under which Yeltsin would give up some of his vast powers and allow parliament a greater say in
making policy.
Zyuganov's comments appeared to surprise some of his leftist allies in the Duma. Nikolai Ryzhkov,
head of the People's Power faction, told Interfax news agency that Zyuganov's rejection of
Chernomyrdin was ''not only unexpected but incomprehensible.''
Ryzhkov noted that party chiefs, Chernomyrdin and Kremlin aides had spent many days and nights
hammering out the document, which is aimed at ending Russia's dangerous political vacuum.
Yeltsin has yet to agree or reject the accord, which is not legally binding.
The president has made clear he is not ready for any major rewriting of Russia's post-Soviet
constitution but has been badly weakened by the current economic crisis and may make some
concessions to ensure Chernomyrdin's approval.
Chernomyrdin, racing against time to avert economic meltdown, might yet muster enough votes in
Monday's vote. In April Zyuganov pledged to oppose the candidacy of Chernomyrdin's
predecessor, Sergei Kiriyenko, but much of his party eventually backed down, fearing an early
dissolution of the Duma.
If the Duma rejects Yeltsin's candidate for prime minister three times the president must dissolve the
chamber and call an early parliamentary election and can appoint whomever he likes as head of the
new government.
Influential tycoon-turned-politician Boris Berezovsky raised that prospect during a separate interview
with Itogi.
''There is absolutely no chance that the next prime minister will not be Viktor Chernomyrdin,'' said
Berezovsky, one of the so-called ''oligarchs'' reported to have engineered the fall of Kiriyenko's
reformist government last weekend.
Ultra-nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, whose Liberal Democratic Party is the third largest
Duma faction, told Itogi his party would also reject Chernomyrdin's candidacy unless his party was
offered several cabinet posts.
Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the pro-market Yabloko faction, reiterated that his party would not
support Chernomyrdin, who served as premier for more than five years until Yeltsin sacked him in
March. Yeltsin reinstated Chernomyrdin last Sunday amid deepening economic crisis.
Yavlinsky, who ran for the presidency against Yeltsin and Zyuganov in the last election in 1996, said
he was ready to form a cabinet to tackle Russia's economic crisis.
He said the deal drawn up at the weekend was flawed because it would rule out any vote of
no-confidence in the new government, however incompetent it turned out to be.
Zhirinovsky said the accord rested on the good will of the signatories, which he said could
disintegrate rapidly in Russia's current economic and political climate.
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