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Yeltsin's Purge - SPECIAL REPORT

© Jeffrey Deutsch

This is an addition to my biweekly routine. Despite the April Fool's release date on this one, events in the Kremlin have been the furthest thing from a joke.

By now I'll assume you've all heard the news: President Boris Yeltsin's first order of business upon returning to work March 23 was to fire Premier Victor Chernomyrdin and the entire Cabinet. He subsequently retained Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov and Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev. Also, First Deputy Premier Boris Nemtsov is likely to be retained in some capacity (he, like many others, is staying on in his present post until - and unless in his case - a replacement can be found).

But Chernomyrdin is definitely outta there. He's been packed off with an admonition to "prepare for the 2000 (Presidential) elections" (in which he is seen as a major contender - and indeed at least up until now Yeltsin's likely desired successor). That, and a medal for services to the fatherland, second class (first class is reserved for the president and foreign dignitaries).

It is speculated that one of Yeltsin's motives for purging the Chernomyrdin cabinet was to discredit him as a successor. But nonetheless, he is heeding Yeltsin's instructions as he moves to reorganize his party, Our Home Is Russia, to mobilize for the 1999 parliamentary and the 2000 presidential elections.

To form a new government, Yeltsin chose Fuel and Energy Minister Sergei Kiriyenko, who had taken over the post from Nemtsov in November as Yeltsin cut the two first deputy premiers (Nemtsov and Anatoly Chubais) down to size. Kiriyenko, in fact, was Nemtsov's protege. He, like Nemtsov, had come from the province of Nizhni Novgorod. When he was appointed to the ministry, he had been president of Nizhni Novgorod's NORSI-Oil company. Before that, he was president of Garantiya, Nizhni Novgorod's social and commercial bank. Previously, under Soviet power, he had been Komsomol (Young Communist League - the organ for indoctrinating teenagers and young adults) Secretary (equivalent to a chair in terms of de facto power) at Krasnoye Sornovo, a shipbuilding plant in Gorky, the largest city in Nizhni Novgorod.

And that's it. You see, he's only 35. And a complete political unknown.

Hence the Moscow News headline, "Sergei Who?!" Not that they didn't respect the man: in the same issue they published a long interview their correspondent, Alexander Bekker, had had with him just before his appointment. And - to my knowledge - no skeletons have come up in Mr. Kiriyenko's closet. But he's still a Kremlin neophyte.

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