A reality wakeup call for all election reformers on the planet - forget about Mr. Clinton and Ms. Lewinsky. Mr. Yeltsin had a constitution adopted in Russia that is basically a dictatorship on paper. Lebed spelled backward just happens to be Debel- possibly biblical ??? ---- --------- Some Russians Want Dictatorship .c The Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) -- One-third of Russians believe the president should have ``supreme power'' and that dictatorship is the only way out of the current economic crisis, a poll released Wednesday says. Those polled named former Gen. Alexander Lebed as the most likely person to establish a dictatorship, according to the Interfax news agency, which reported on the poll. The nationwide poll was conducted among 2,400 Russians last weekend by the National Public Opinion Center, which said it had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The report did not say how the respondents were contacted. The poll findings correspond to a common perception that many Russians yearn for strong -- and even dictatorial -- leadership to solve the country's deep problems. When he was acting prime minister earlier this month, Viktor Chernomyrdin warned the country was in danger of lurching into fascism. Thirty-three percent of those polled said the Russian president should have ``supreme power,'' the pollsters said, while 34 percent said the establishment of a dictatorship was the only solution to the economic crisis. Forty-five percent disagreed that a dictatorship was the only solution; 21 percent were undecided. Asked who is most likely to establish a dictatorship, 19 percent named Lebed, the governor of the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk. Lebed, a nationalist, says he strongly believes in the democratic process. Fourteen percent said the communists and their allies were the most likely dictators, and 8 percent said they thought a military dictatorship was most likely. Only 18 percent said they believed no one could establish a dictatorship and 23 percent were undecided. AP-NY-09-23-98 1629EDT
