Word: yeltsin
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...communists, their ideology and the Soviet state turned out to be illegitimate as well. Little wonder that today's citizens are confused and distrustful, wondering what, if anything, they can believe in. For the most part, they do not trust their government, and the administration of President Boris Yeltsin is not helping. It talks reform but hasn't been able to deliver fully. It bills its economy as a free-market system when it actually is a hybrid between robber-baron capitalism and state control. And now it is snatching away the greatest accomplishments of the painful Yeltsin years...
...Yeltsin's decisions to let the ruble float down as much as 34% and to put a moratorium on corporate- and bank-debt repayments are desperate measures, steps the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund advised against. If they are followed by real reforms of the tax and banking systems, the program might restore some confidence in the economy and bring investors back. But by itself, the floating ruble will slash the savings of some Russians and increase the cost of living for many, especially those who live in the cities, where more than half the food in the shops...
...some ways, Yeltsin is already gone. He still holds office, but his mental and physical staying power is fading. He is out of touch, sometimes simply out of it. On Friday, Aug. 14, he seemed unaware that his chief ministers were preparing the devaluation just as he was assuring the nation it would not happen. He signed off on the move when he got back to town, but when the announcement was finally made, he said nothing. He didn't even seem tempted to fire his Prime Minister--his usual style of crisis leadership--possibly because he would then have...
Unfortunately, it is not likely to get one at the hands of a parliament dominated by communists and nationalists who despise Yeltsin and his youthful reformist ministers. The government was to try again to pass a long-delayed reform package at week's end in a special session of the Duma. Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko has had no more luck than his predecessors in budging the Duma, but now he can plead that this is a genuine crisis...
Whether or not Yeltsin's economic package succeeds, the sharpest backlash may be political. Yeltsin will surely find it more difficult stitching together a coalition of politicians and financiers to back him in a run for a third term two years from now. In fact, if the emergency measures begin to work, the big winner may turn out to be Anatoli Chubais, the former First Deputy Prime Minister who has been handling Russia's international-debt negotiations. His boosters will cheer him as the man who pulled Russia back from the brink--while Yeltsin fiddled...