Word: viktor
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MOSCOW: Russia's politicians may reach an agreement on a prime minister, but they're unlikely to agree on an economic policy. Boris Yeltsin has convened a weekend horse-trading session in the hope of securing Viktor Chernomyrdin's election on Monday, after the Duma postponed Friday's vote. "The Communists still insist they'll reject Chernomyrdin, but the tide may be turning as backroom deals have swung some key constituencies," says TIME Moscow correspondent Andrew Meier...
...Determining who is in charge won't be easy, either: Although Yeltsin plans to renominate Viktor Chernomyrdin for prime minister despite his resounding rejection by the Duma on Monday, the Communists and nationalists who control the legislature may nominate their own candidate -- and the outcome of the power struggle will shape the future of Russian economic reform. "It's a serious game of chicken that could get out of control," says Quinn-Judge. And while contending factions tussle for control of the wheel, the ship is sinking fast...
Take me to your leader. That's the worst possible thing President Clinton could ask when he arrives in Moscow Tuesday, because Russia's political leadership is no closer to filling its power vacuum than it is to resolving the country's economic crisis. The Duma on Monday rejected Viktor Chernomyrdin as prime minister, while Boris Yeltsin has already accepted a lame-duck presidency by agreeing to relinquish many of his executive powers. That leaves the tycoon kingmaker Boris Berezovsky as the most powerful man in Moscow, but the latter-day Rasputin is not on Clinton's itinerary...
...Yeltsin era is over and Russia's future is uncertain. Prospects for economic reform are bleak. Whether or not Yeltsin remains in office, power will be in the hands of Viktor Chernomyrdin's unlikely coalition of technocrats, Communists and tycoons. That new administration plans to revive price controls and other Soviet-era economic mechanisms that may well smother what's left of the county's infant entrepreneurship...
...bomb shelters. "Traders look at Russia, and they see Indonesia with nukes," says Baumohl. "The same failing economy, the same social unrest. But with Russia, there's that spectre that if the wrong people come to power, we've got the Cold War all over again." Baumohl looks at Viktor Chernomyrdin's return to the Kremlin as a "soft coup" -- but what comes next could be very, very hard...