PRESSURES MOUNT -- WATCH YELTSIN'S HEALTH!!!!
New York Times - 09/08/98
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
MOSCOW -- Russia's parliament again spurned President Boris Yeltsin's choice for prime minister Monday after last-minute negotiations between the Kremlin and a defiant Communist opposition broke down.
Yeltsin gave no signs of backing down Monday night over his nomination of Viktor Chernomyrdin as prime minister. That set the stage for another debilitating round of political wrangling as the economy continued to reel out of control.
Sergei Dubinin, the beleaguered chairman of the central bank, resigned Monday after increasing criticism of his role in managing Russia's financial crisis. His parting shot was a blistering letter assailing the government for failing to collect taxes and maintain financial discipline.
The going rate for dollars at local exchange counters hovered around 20 rubles, and the value of the ruble fell much more at the national currency exchange before trading was suspended, an ominous sign that
the currency may be in for another round of devaluation. A month ago, a dollar bought about six rubles.
Many stores in Moscow were virtually picked clean by shoppers who raided the merchants as imports dried up. Toothpaste, butter, toilet paper and soap powder have become hard to find. Lines at gas stations grew as motorists raced to beat price increases of as much as 40 percent.
Outside the capital there were shortages and skyrocketing prices as well. In the Siberian city of Omsk, the price of kielbasa, the spicy sausage that is a Russian staple, has doubled since the crisis began two weeks ago. In Novgorod, 300 miles northwest of Moscow, the cost of medicine soared. Some regional governors are trying to institute price controls.
As the panic has spread, Chernomyrdin warned parliament Monday that the country was not merely approaching the danger zone. "We are already crossing it," he said. "Russia has never been through a crisis like this."
His appeal fell far short. Chernomyrdin needed 226 votes to win approval. The vote was 278-138 against his nomination. Not even Yeltsin's offer to install Chernomyrdin on a kind of six-month probation softened the opposition.
Nor was the opposition influenced by an offer from Boris Fyodorov, the Kremlin's top economic strategist. Since the Communists have been demanding that the government crank up the presses to print rubles,
he announced that the presses would be turned on -- but not until Chernomyrdin, who has been acting prime minister since Aug. 23, was confirmed.
The main opposition to Chernomyrdin, who has already served a term as Yeltsin's prime minister, came from the Communists, who dominate the legislature along with their leftist allies.
Casting the crisis as a chance to take power back from the executive branch, the Communists have demanded that Yeltsin agree to a new plan to share power with Parliament and that he scrap Chernomyrdin's nomination.
The liberal Yabloko party, led by Grigory Yavlinsky, has broken completely with Yeltsin. Yavlinsky Monday incongruously proposed Yevgeny Primakov, the hard-line foreign minister, for prime minister.
Yavlinsky, who broached the idea with Yeltsin Monday, appears to see a Primakov government as an opportunity to gain a place for himself in a governing coalition.
Primakov's name was not the only one bandied about. Opposition members of Parliament have also talked about Yegor Stroyev, the head of the upper house, and Yuri Luzhkov, the pugnacious mayor of
Moscow.
Chernomyrdin supporters insisted that Yeltsin was determined to stick to his guns and would renominate Chernomyrdin on Tuesday, paving the way for a third and final showdown with parliament.
A third rejection of Chernomyrdin's nomination would lead to the dissolution of the legislature and new parliamentary elections within three months.
Anticipating possible parliamentary elections, Yeltsin's Justice Ministry has issued a ruling that would block the Communists, Yabloko and other political parties from taking part in a vote this year. The
ministry acted on procedural grounds relating to when parties can get on the ballot under a 1997 right-to-vote law. But individual Communists would be able to run on their own.
As the infighting continued, Gennadi Zyuganov, the Communist leader, said Monday night that he planned to resume talks with Yeltsin and Chernomyrdin on Tuesday.
With its leaders preoccupied with political intrigue and with no new government in place to deal with the collapsing economy, Russia these days is like a storm-tossed boat whose captain and crew are below
deck and whose engine has just quit.
The parliamentary debate was punctuated with bitter recriminations. A glum Chernomyrdin warned that a nuclear-armed Russia would be engulfed in Indonesian-style riots if the crisis continued to intensify.
"What happened to your memory?" he asked the Communists. "Were shop counters full at the beginning of the 1990s? It took us six years to land on our feet, and now you want to throw it all away."
"Indonesia reached the point where the country went up in flames," Chernomyrdin added. "Is this what you want?"
The Communists and their leftist allies were not impressed.
Yelena Panina, a member of the pro-Communist Power to the People Party, blamed Chernomyrdin for leading the country into the financial crisis during his first term as prime minister, from December 1992
to March of this year.
"When King Louis XIV wanted to know what people thought about him, he disguised himself as a commoner and walked the streets of Paris," she said. "I suggest you try this and find out about what people say about you and your reforms in Moscow. But you'd better disguise yourself really well. You'll be in trouble if they recognize you."
The squabbling produced some bizarre role reversals.
After the liberal Yavlinsky endorsed Primakov for prime minister, the ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky delivered a tirade against the foreign minister, who has made his mark as a bitter foe of NATO expansion and an opponent of American dominance.
Zhirinovsky charged that Primakov had encouraged the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in an earlier era. And he complained that Yavlinsky had cut a cynical deal to support Primakov in return for
appointment as the top Kremlin aide in charge of the economy.
There were few voices of moderation. But as the acid debate intensified, Galina Starovoytova, a liberal legislator, finally burst in. She laid the blame for Russia's travails at the feet of the Communists, who have repeatedly sought to frustrate the government's market reforms.
"You would like to bring us back to the pre-perestroika time," she said, referring to the reforms ushered in by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. "Congratulations. You managed to do it. Look at the
empty shop counters. It's the result of your activities."
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