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To: Alex who wrote (16478)	8/24/1998 3:09:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116822

ANALYSIS-Yeltsin battles for power in govt sacking 11:21 a.m. Aug 24, 1998 Eastern By Timothy Heritage MOSCOW, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Russian President Boris Yeltsin's dismissal of his entire cabinet has won him a breathing space in a tough battle to hold on to power, political analysts said on Monday. But many analysts said that Yeltsin had also suffered a new blow to his prestige and that confidence in him was so low that his ability to regain the trust of ordinary Russians, investors and political and business leaders was now in serious doubt. ''Yeltsin is a master at holding on to power and he is giving himself a little breathing space,'' Dmitry Trenin, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Moscow, told Reuters. ''But what he has done is turn an economic crisis into a political crisis.'' Yeltsin, 67, ended Sergei Kiriyenko's four-month tenure as prime minister on Sunday because of his failure to stem a financial crisis and rehabilitated his old ally Viktor Chernomyrdin, just five months after sacking him as premier. The president hinted heavily in a television address on Monday that he wanted Chernomyrdin to succeed him in the next presidential election in 2000. Yeltsin presented the decisions as well-considered moves to steady financial markets and pull Russia through its crisis. But he has now carried out a series of humiliating about-turns in policy which raise doubts about his long-term vision and ability to guide Russia through the stormy waters. Russia in effect devalued the rouble last week, three days after Yeltsin ruled out such a move. He sacked Sergei Kiriyenko as prime minister nine days after saying he would keep him on and, according to some reports, a week after refusing the premier's own offer to resign. He now faces a huge battle to win the support of the opposition-dominated State Duma, the lower house of parliament, for a man who would almost certainly have still been in power today if Yeltsin had not sacked him last March. ''The president is in an idiotic position. He removed Chernomyrdin and pushed Kiriyenko through the Duma with a big scandal five months ago,'' Sergei Parkhomenko, editor of the current affairs magazine Itogi, said in a radio interview. ''Now he has done everything the other way round with just as big a scandal...What is serious is that the president's prestige has again suffered a huge blow.'' Some analysts said Yeltsin had been pushed into a corner by the failure of his and his government's actions to resolve the financial crisis, and particularly by its decision on August 17 to let the rouble devalue. ''The authorities have been devalued themselves,'' the liberal newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta said last week. The drop in confidence prompted fierce attacks on Yeltsin and the government in the Duma on Friday, when deputies urged the prime minister and president to quit. Some analysts say Yeltsin's only way out was to recall Chernomyrdin because the other potential prime ministerial candidates being considered would face too much opposition in the Duma -- economic guru Anatoly Chubais, upper house speaker Yegor Stroyev and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. The political cost and embarrassment of reverting to Chernomyrdin is potentially considerable for Yeltsin. But his aides, who some analysts say were acting under pressure from powerful business circles, seem to have persuaded him he had to act fast before the last drops of confidence in the economy evaporated. ''You can say the decision caused him much pain. We know how long they had to convince him because Chernomyrdin's recall is an admission that he made a personal error by ousting him,'' said Alexei Venediktov, news editor of Ekho Moskvy radio station. ''Chernomyrdin set the condition that he would have a broad mandate to form the cabinet on his own, although with Yeltsin's agreement...The president had no other options and of course this reduces his political weight and influence.'' Analysts are widely predicting the creation of a coalition government bringing in communists, Yeltsin's old foes. If Yeltsin still had even a slim chance at the start of this month of winning re-election in 2000, that chance has probably now gone, many analysts say. Some say the president may even have decided to step aside in the long run. They say that by bringing back Chernomyrdin and giving him greater independence, the president may be preparing to clear the way for him to make a bid for the presidency. Under this scenario, Yeltsin's aim would be to try to ensure the next president continues his own policies. ''It looks like the president is starting to withdraw from office step by step and handing over power to the heir,'' former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev told Ekho Moskvy. Other analysts said it was also possible that Yeltsin still wanted to seek a third term and that he believed Chernomyrdin's credentials would be stained by a new spell as prime minister, removing him as a presidential rival in the long run. ''I don't think it is in Yeltsin's character to think about giving up power,'' Trenin said. Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.