Word: yeltsin
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That seems to be exactly what everyone is afraid of. On Thursday when the President emerged from seclusion, he complained that he was "not completely satisfied with Lebed's performance." During the recent election campaign, said a testy Yeltsin, Lebed "said if he had power, he could solve Chechnya. Well, now he has the power, and unfortunately, I still can't see any results." By then Lebed's agreement was already in the works. Was the President unaware of events, or simply determined to cut his rival down a peg? Or was Yeltsin just trying to avoid being the answer...
...Chechen fighting ebbed, the Kremlin war continued. On Friday, Lebed announced he would meet with his boss to settle things. Yeltsin initially declined to see his envoy or endorse his blueprint for peace. But later, he reportedly told Lebed by telephone that he generally approved of his initial efforts to end the war and authorized him to hold talks with Chechen rebel leaders on a political accord that would keep Chechnya within the Russian Federation. Lebed headed back to Chechnya over the weekend to work out such a settlement...
...only aspirant. Anatoli Chubais, the economic reformer who is the President's chief of staff, has stayed out of the Chechen mess while he cements his own powers as "regent" over all presidential decrees and appointments. Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, who has the constitutional right to succeed Yeltsin in the event of his incapacity or death, seems to have formed a powerful alliance with Chubais...
...Yeltsin's power has always been his ability to fan the tensions dividing his ministers. This strategy ensured that each man was undercut by his rivals, and enabled Yeltsin to act as the power-broking referee at the center. While his minions clawed at one another, Yeltsin had only to keep egging them on and maintain a watchful eye, which is why his health is such a closely guarded secret...
...question now is whether Yeltsin has the physical and mental stamina to keep that high-risk approach going. "Yeltsin is always capable of something unexpected," says Anatoli Sobchak, the former mayor of St. Petersburg. "He seems to have lost all his strength and then he recuperates." But each recuperation appears to exact a heavier toll, and bouts of hyperactivity are followed by longer and longer periods of inaction and illness. That is no long-term prescription for keeping control of a country as unruly as Russia today...