Word: duma
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...better than none. So Foreign Minister Yevgeni Primakov was persuaded to overcome his reluctance and take the job of Prime Minister. Primakov, a former journalist, academic and spymaster, is a man who believes in strong government, and presumably felt he had to respond when his President called. The Duma confirmed him overwhelmingly, 315 votes to 63, last Friday. His appointment solves the political stalemate at the top, at least for now, but it does nothing to cure the nation's economic crisis. Primakov has not yet put forward a program, but his signals indicate a partial turn away from market...
Primakov is not overtly anti-U.S., but he is a gosudarstvennik, a proponent of a strong, centralized Russian state in foreign and domestic affairs. His opposition to American policies stems from this world view. And it wins him the support of the nationalists and communists in the Duma, who share his resentment of the world's lack of respect for their country. Washington understands his motivations. He is, says a senior White House official, "a hardheaded pursuer of what he believes are Russia's national interests...
...successful can Primakov be? His opening moves are not promising. He is pledging to form a kind of coalition government, apparently to please several of the Duma's parties, and that may be a formula for confusion. In a statement last week, he denied any plans to return to the Soviet past but said flatly, "The government should intervene in economic affairs and regulate them." Then he selected two men with a lot of experience with such intervention. As his first Cabinet appointment, he named Yuri Maslyukov, a Communist Party member and a former head of the Soviet State Planning...
Primakov also accepted the Duma's choice as the new head of the central bank, Viktor Gerashchenko. Actually, he is not new, as he was head of the bank twice before: once when many ordinary citizens had their savings wiped out by a disastrous reform in 1991, and again when the ruble sank 30% on a single day, Black Tuesday, in 1994. During both tours of duty, Gerashchenko was widely criticized for heedlessly printing rubles and pumping almost unlimited credit into rusting, unproductive industrial enterprises and collective farms...
Unlike Russian President Boris Yeltsin, President Jiang Zemin maintains tight political control. The reform-minded Zhu might take some heat if the currency sinks, but in contrast to the unruly Duma, China's pliant National People's Congress is not going to threaten a constitutional crisis...