Word: chernomyrdin
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While the Communists dream of power, those who wield it appear adrift, as a fin-de-regime cloud settles over the Kremlin and the maneuvering for power within intensifies. At least two members of the new Yeltsin team, Lebed and Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin, have obvious presidential ambitions and little love for each other. Lebed's aides in fact privately hint that Chernomyrdin will be a prime target of their planned anticorruption campaign. Both, however, are deeply wary of Anatoli Chubais, the new chief of the presidential staff. An ambitious, tough-minded proponent of privatization, Chubais in turn shares with...
Even so, there are plenty of minicrises coming. Privatization is lagging; agriculture is unreformed; the government is not collecting the taxes it is owed; and industrial production is still falling. Lebed and Chernomyrdin are sparring, and the Duma is looking for ways to assert its authority. A strong, engaged President may be able to sort it all out, and Yeltsin's supporters hope he has the heart...
...position of Vice President should be re-established, with himself in the role. As a strongman, "I look more like a Vice President," he told state television. "I need more powers," he said, even though he described himself as "a semi-democrat" at best. In an indirect attack on Chernomyrdin, who retains close links with the natural-gas industry he once headed, Lebed accused the "energy barons" of accumulating "overwhelming influence." Lebed was bold enough last week to send Yeltsin a list of names he thought should be selected for the next Cabinet, including his nominees for the Defense Ministry...
Lebed was important to Yeltsin's re-election, so Chernomyrdin has loyally kept silent during most of these provocations. Now that Yeltsin has renominated him as Prime Minister, and now that Duma speaker Gennadi Seleznyov, a top Communist leader, has indicated he will not oppose him, Chernomyrdin is firing back. Yeltsin, he told reporters, had instructed him to put together a list of Cabinet members for the President's approval. "I have never delegated any of my powers to anyone, and I will not," he said. As to the vice presidency, says Chernomyrdin, that will have to wait at least...
...Chernomyrdin rejects the spate of warnings, including some from Lebed, that Russia's economy is heading for a crisis later this year because of Yeltsin's campaign promises. "There will be no crisis next fall," he says. Maybe not. While Yeltsin made a lot of pork-barrel promises, no one knows how much he has actually paid out. International Monetary Fund officials say Russia was within its guidelines for June...