Aleksandr Lebed - The General Who Stood Firm Against Communism and Democracy
While Mr. Lebed and Mr. Chernomyrden quarrelled about cabinet appointments, Mr. Yeltsin "disappeared" for four days before the election. On 1 July he read the press a statement to urge the people to vote. He did not give a very good account of himself in that appearance. The very pro-Yeltsin press used large quantities of make-up to accomplish the trite task of giving him an adequate portrayal. Mr. Yeltsin evaded the press on election day by voting at the polling place near his dacha rather than at the Moscow polling place where the press were told he would vote. The cameras went one way; Mr. Yeltsin went another.
In September 1996 it was divulged that Mr. Yeltsin suffered from a serious heart condition and would undergo surgical procedures to remedy the ailment. Rather than traveling to Switzerland or the US for the surgery, Mr. Yeltsin wanted it done in Russia. Within hours of this news, Mr. Lebed commenced what seemed a rather absurd scheme to oust Mr. Yeltsin. Mr. Lebed advised that while Mr. Yeltsin was hospitalized, he should surrender his Presidential authority to prime minister Chernomyrden. Mr. Yeltsin rejected that suggestion immediately.
Why should Mr. Lebed advise that Mr. Yeltsin should surrender his authority to Mr. Chernomyrden? Mr. Lebed considered Mr. Chernomyrden his main rival for power. Surely the General entertained some grand designs of enhancing his position. Why should he think he would be drawn into a Chernomyrden administration?
The law establishing the succession rules contained a linguistic glitch. The prime minister serves as the de facto vice-President and thus as the acting President if the elected President is deemed incompetent, but no statutory language defined how or in what circumstances the President must be declared incompetent or ill-fit to rule. That legal gap provided the basis for Mr. Lebed's otherwise insubordinate comments.
But Mr. Yeltsin had the last word on the "competent to rule" topic. On 17 October 1996 Mr. Yeltsin left his hospital bed where he awaited major heart surgery and announced his decision to sack Mr. Lebed. The former Speaker of the Duma Ivan Rybkin replaced him as security minister. Mr. Rybkin earned for himself a reputation as a very safe pair of hands. Despite his lack of coup potential, Mr. Rybkin had against him the fact that he clung much closer to the communist ideology than many of the Yeltsin reformers. This affiliation did not hinder Mr. Rybkin in fulfilling
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