Yeltsin plays for high stakes in new PM swap
Socialist Outlook1990sScanned print read by OCR, and not yet proofread: expect run-together words, dropped letters and, where a piece began partway down a page, a few lines of its neighbour. The printed page is the authority.
B oris Yeltsin has several major problems as next year's presiden› tial election. creeps closer, as far as determining his successor is concerned. The overarching problem is the economy. He has been unable to resolve the economic crisis in Russia which brought the economy close to meltdown at this time last year. The situation faced by Russia was part of a global crisis centred in South East Asia and Japan and which threatened to precipitate a world-wide slump. The rouble went into free-fall after a rapid drop in production in the Tiger economies resulted in a drop in the world price of oil - one of Russia's principal exports. Since that time, the worst case scenario has not developed world-wide: the line was held, principally in the USA - at the cost of a grossly over-valued stock exchange. How long that situation can remain is a matter of speculation but at some stage it will readjust, and major instability is likely to return to world markets. Meanwhile things stabilised a bit in Russia, but nothing was resolved - and no one has much idea how to resolve it. Yeltsin Serious wants to push eco- allegations of nomic reforms forward as corruption have quickly as possi- been made against ble but in pracboth Yeltsin and tice reestablishing his supporters in Russia 1s a long uphill task.
The laws of capitalism are hardly present in big swathes of the economy and many industries, as well as individual people, survive by barter and the black market. Meanwhile gangster capitalism dominates the smaller profitable sectors of society. Then there are those who are organising against Yeltsin, aiming to take the presidency. The most significant of these is the new Fatherland Morement initiated by the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov. This organisation has just been joined by former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov - sacked by Yeltsin at an earlier stage and a popular politician in the country. They launched the Fatherland Movement publicly at a conference on August 21.
Frustration as to how to combat this new formation, stay in office, and ensure the succession led Yeltsin to sack yet another prime minister last week, this time Sergei Stepashin (who had only been in office ins ree months), and threaten dissolve the parliament if it did not endorse his new nominee for the job.
This was the faceless former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, notable only for his loyalty and subservience to Yeltsin and his inner circle.
Russians were left in little doubt that what was involved was a move by Yeltsin's inner circle to line up an electable candidate for next year's presidential elections when Yelsin introduced Putin not only as his nominee for Prime Minister, but also as his chosen successor! Nothing very subtle about that.
It is not only for political reasons that Yeltsin is determined to have a loyalist follow him into the prestdency, but fear of moves against both him and his inner circle for corruption whilst. in office. Seriots allegations of corruption have been made against both Yeltsin and his supporters. It seems that investigators in Geneva may be about to track down Yeltsin's personal fortune which has been laundered through Swiss bank accounts. This is dangerous stuff when at the present time Russian law does not provide immunity for ex-presidents.
But it is not just this mess and the intractable problems of the economy which will face both Yeltsin's new Prime Minister and
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