Word: stepashin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first challenge will be winning approval for his choice to replace Primakov, a colorless former political commissar named Sergei Stepashin. Unlike Primakov, Stepashin is largely unknown outside Russia. In the corridors of power he is recognized as a capable bureaucrat, and someone who in recent months has quietly become a presidential favorite. As head of the Federal Security Service, the successor to the kgb, he was a hawk during the war in Chechnya. And he remains deeply unpopular among Russian officers for the way he sent a covert force into Chechnya at the start of the war and disowned...
...What Stepashin does, and does very well, is protect Yeltsin. And his appointment more than anything is a sign that Yeltsin has now morphed from a man who wanted to change Russia into a man who simply wants to hold on to power. As his nation starves, Yeltsin reached not for an economist or a diplomat who might be able to help Russians figure a way forward. Instead he called on a security man. After its humiliation over the impeachment, the Duma may decide to save face by rejecting Stepashin. But it may be hard for them to summon...
...Sergei Stepashin is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. After his nomination sailed through parliament Wednesday, the former secret policeman now shares the lot of all of Boris Yeltsin's prime ministers. "The very ease with which he was confirmed will immediately rouse Yeltsin's suspicion," says TIME Moscow bureau chief Paul Quinn-Judge. "After all, for all his ill health and mental diminution, Yeltsin still controls the political system here, and he's immediately suspicious of any prime minister who appears to get along with the Duma or enjoys public confidence. Of course, a prime...
...Duma's acceptance of Stepashin's nomination wasn't simply a backhanded curse. "They're deeply demoralized by their failure to impeach Yeltsin and they fear he may be out to provoke a crisis to dissolve parliament, possibly even banning them," says Quinn-Judge. "And of course, they have a demonstrably incompetent leadership." Stepashin made the usual promises about fighting corruption and reforming the economy. But Russians see Stepashin as a familiar sideshow, while real power remains in the hands of an all-powerful president whose physical and mental health are in perilous decline...
...Yeltsin is threatening to dissolve the Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, and call new elections unless his new pick for prime minister, Sergei Stepashin, is approved. That looked unlikely Thursday, as legislators proceeded with moves to impeach Yeltsin, setting the stage for a showdown. While the constitution allows Yeltsin to dissolve the legislature if it rejects his nominee three times, it also forbids dissolution of the Duma while impeachment proceedings are under way. That may look like a constitutional crisis in a Western democracy, but in Boris Yeltsin's Russia lawyers and judges...