Yeltsin's Purge Part II: The Expanding Vortex
First off, appy polly loggies, as the folks on Clockwork Orange would put it, for the tardiness of this piece. Your Obedient Servant was off investigating another issue which may be coming up in Moscow. Nothing has surfaced yet, but I'm still on the case. More when and if anything develops.
By the time you read this, we will know already what has happened with the first stage of the nomination of Acting Premier Sergei Kiriyenko to retain his position permanently (which has come to mean a heck of a lot less over the last 13 months though...). The Duma agreed to delay a first vote on the issue until April 10 (it normally would have been April 3, one week following President Boris Yeltsin's official nomination of Kiriyenko to be permanent premier).
Lines are being drawn in the sand: again, Communist leader in the Duma Gennady Zyuganov has gone on record as opposing it, not only due to Kiriyenko's youth and inexperience, but also due to his supposed support for free market policies. But, he has moderated his statements somewhat, now saying simply that Kiriyenko would not succeed on a first vote. And even Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal pro-government Yabloko faction in the Duma, has gone on record as saying that "This isn't democracy, it's Byzantium" regarding the way in which Yeltsin conducted the purge and his appointment of Kiriyenko, and charged that Kiriyenko obtained the president's favor by being in good with his staff. He later said that "I have a growing feeling that this one is a provisional government and it cannot hope for our support."
Yet Yegor Stroyev, speaker of the Federation Council, has endorsed Kiriyenko, saying that his youth was not a big problem, and adding that with experienced and wise people around him he could lead the economy out of crisis. Also, Yuri Luzhkov, mayor of Moscow, has cautiously endorsed Kiriyenko. Boris "Bad Penny" Berezovsky, formerly Security Council deputy chair and now assistant to the Kremlin chief of staff, has strongly endorsed Kiriyenko.
Unfortunately, their support will have to be indirect (though it may still be important), since it is the Duma which votes on the premier. But, their even getting into the act has implications, which I will discuss below.
In the Duma itself, the People's Power party, a close associate of the Communists, has expressed opposition to Kiriyenko. The Agrarian Party would greatly prefer that Kiriyenko set up a special commission to examine Russia's economic situation. Our Home Is Russia (led by Victor Chernomyrdin, now ex-Premier and just-announced presidential candidate) is withholding comment until Kiriyenko's speech on April 10.
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