Reprinted from The Washington Times , 5am -- March 24, 1998
Yeltsin's government shake-up stuns experts
By Martin Sieff
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Russian President Boris Yeltsin summarily dismissed Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and his entire Cabinet yesterday in what looks like a high bid to ensure his legacy of free market and democratic reforms.
Pledging to maintain the reforms he began after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Mr. Yeltsin named a little-known 35-year-old reformer, Fuel and Energy Minister Sergei Kirienko, to run the government until a new Cabinet is appointed.
But analysts warned the mercurial president may have inadvertently opened his country to unforeseen political risks and instability.
The Moscow Stock Exchange plunged on the initial news of the dismissals but bounced back after Mr. Yeltsin explained himself in a television address. The benchmark RTS share index began the day down 4 percent but ended 2.1 percent higher.
The firing of Mr. Chernomyrdin, Russia's prime minister for more than five years, marks the biggest political shake-up in Russia since the collapse of communism.
"This move was wholly unexpected and unpredictable," said Keith Bush, Eurasian affairs analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Yeltsin does change people much too often. This is no way to
stabilize the Russian economy and political scene."
"It came as a total surprise," agreed Gennady Seleznyov, the neo-communist speaker of the opposition-controlled lower house of parliament, speaking in Moscow.
Russian political sources said hard-line Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov and his bitter reformist foe, First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais, would both be dropped. But Mr. Chubais welcomed the reshuffle.
"The perspective for the reformers is quite good," he said. "It's even better than now."
U.S. and Russian leaders insisted there would be no major policy change.
"We hope that the general direction of policy will be unaffected by this," said President Clinton, traveling in Africa.
"I have no reason to believe ... that anything different will occur in a way that is at all adverse to the partnership we've been building with Russia."
National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger took the same line. "This does not appear to be a change of direction. To some degree, it is a change of personnel. It happens from time to time," he said.
Mr. Chernomyrdin -- the embodiment of stability in Russia since his appointment in December 1992 -- has been given a job running Mr. Yeltsin's presumed presidential campaign in 2000, although most people in Moscow believe the ailing 67-year-old president will not be healthy enough to seek a third term.
Mr. Chernomyrdin took a relaxed line -- at least in public.
"There is no governmental crisis in the country," he said. "This is a natural and routine process of renewing power. One thing is clear: The course of reforms in Russia is irreversible."
Most of the Cabinet members were ordered to stay on temporarily and many, including tough, ex-Communist Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, were expected to keep their posts.
Mr. Primakov has "indicated that he expects to be staying on in that capacity in the new government," State Department spokesman Jim Foley told reporters yesterday.
Mr. Yeltsin said he needed a fresh government to re-energize economic reforms, which he said were moving too slowly, jeopardizing the future of democracy in Russia.
"Unfortunately, people don't feel changes for the better," he said in his nationally televised broadcast. "I believe that recently the government has been lacking dynamism and initiative, new outlooks, fresh approaches and ideas. And without this, a powerful breakthrough in the economy is impossible."
Mr. Yeltsin indicated he had a candidate for prime minister but did not say whom he had chosen. His press secretary, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, told NTV television that Mr. Kirienko was "the most likely, strong and possible candidate" for the post.
Mr. Kirienko, 35, is a close government ally of First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov and served as Mr. Nemtsov's deputy before becoming fuel and energy minister last November.
"It shows me that Mr. Nemtsov's position in the future government will be rather stronger than in the previous one," Nikolai Petrov, a Moscow-based political analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, told the Associated Press.
"Yeltsin really likes Nemtsov. The question is, has Yeltsin dropped Chernomyrdin to clear a path for Nemtsov?" said Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation. "This is going to be the 'historic legacy government' of Boris Yeltsin. That is what the president appears to have in mind."
Mr. Petrov described Mr. Kirienko as "the most effective manager in Nemtsov's team," but a man of far too limited experience to become an effective prime minister.
Either Mr. Nemtsov or Mr. Kirienko would have a very difficult time getting confirmed as prime minister by the State Duma. Both are loathed by the neo-communists and nationalists who control half the main house of the Russian parliament.
And without Mr. Chernomyrdin and Mr. Chubais, the next government may lack the tough, experienced administrators and Kremlin infighters who held power and maintained stability during Mr. Yeltsin's frequent bouts of ill health, experts warned.
"Chubais seems to be leaving the government too, as well as Chernomyrdin, and there is no one of their caliber left," Mr. Cohen said.
If the Duma rejects Mr. Nemtsov or Mr. Kirienko, Mr. Yeltsin might have to dissolve it and call new parliamentary elections. But that would put a heavy strain on his weak health and a victory would by no means be guaranteed.
"Any radical reformer would be unacceptable to the Duma. And no one knows what would happen in new [parliamentary] elections," said Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom.
If Mr. Yeltsin appoints a more cautious or even hard-line figure acceptable to parliament, he would risk angering foreign investors and the International Monetary Fund, whose support Russia desperately needs, Mr. Simes said.
Moscow political insiders said Mr. Yeltsin, who was convalescing from what was described as the flu at a sanitarium last week, had been angered when he saw the high public profile Mr. Chernomyrdin was projecting on Russian television.
In the hope of succeeding Mr. Yeltsin as president in the 2000 elections, Mr. Chernomyrdin has been appearing in his own television program every Saturday night, answering phone-in questions from the public. This was anathema to Mr. Yeltsin, some Moscow sources said.
"Yeltsin saw Chernomyrdin on television growing more important, but there is only supposed to be one important person in Russia: Boris Yeltsin," Mr. Simes said.
- Warren Strobel in Accra contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
To subscribe to the Washington Times National Weekly Edition, click this icon or call 800-363-9118.
