--------------86CF36B554D792AB8092DC25 Zhirinovsky, Lebed and communists join coalition talks August 27, 1998 The Independent By Phil Reeves in Moscow Cock-fighting pit, hot-air factory, drinking den and knocking shop. The popular image of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, and the glossy-jowled men in grey suits who sit in it, could scarcely have been worse. Until now. Now the tectonic plates beneath Russia's political system are shifting, weakening the ground beneath the broken figure of President Boris Yeltsin. And suddenly, the honourable gentlemen have caught the whiff of power. Since his abrupt restoration to office on Sunday, Viktor Chernomyrdin, the acting prime minister, has been in intense talks with parliamentary leaders. He is wooing their support because he wants them to confirm him in his post. But he may also feel that, if he is to rule for long in a crisis-hit country, he will have to share some of his power. Or, at least, pretend to. Thus, he has referred to creating a broad-based government of "accord". Thus, to the approval of the left, he has disparaged monetary economics as not the only answer to Russia's woes. And thus, too, the wily premier-designate has shuffled from pillar to post, absorbing one demand after another. The loudest of these have come from the Duma's generally cautious Communist speaker, Gennady Seleznyov, who wants Mr Yeltsin's resignation, a constitution that gives more power to parliament, and a coalition government. Mr Chernomyrdin appears to be listening. Last night, before heading for Crimea, he was to meet Vladimir Zhirinovsky, mad-cap leader of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democrats, the second largest party, and Gennady Zyuganov, head of the dominant Communist faction. Intriguingly, he is also talking to Alexander Lebed, the popular ex-paratroop general. A commission, with representatives from both houses of parliament and the government, is drawing up proposals on policy. For now, consensus politics is all the rage; Tsars and radical reformers are out. "The Government used to treat the Duma as if it was only a mob of chatterboxes," said Yuri Krasnov, head of the Duma's scientific research department. "But now its role has drastically changed. The President and government knows there could be a social collapse here.That's forced them to turn their face to parliament." This may be a fleeting taste for the legislature, but it is an important moment in its short history. The Duma was created after Mr Yeltsin's violent stand-off with parliament in 1993, using its pre-Revolutionary name. But it was restricted by the constitution which the President had secured by a rigged referendum in the same year, and which concentrated power on the Kremlin. It can pressure the government by, for instance, holding up the annual budget or the land code, or by refusing to verify the Start-2 arms agreement or, most recently, by rejecting parts of a package of economic austerity measures introduced by government, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund. But it is fundamentally weak, especially when compared with the United States Congress. Its overall lack of clout was compounded by a lack of respect, born of lurid accounts of the wild behaviour of its some of its members and the staggeringly numerous - 10,000 by one estimate - aides and guards in their retinues. There have been stories of wild parties behind its sombre stone walls in downtown Moscow. Violence has never been far away. One member blew up his own office when a bomb went off by mistake; four were killed on the 1996 campaign trail. A Communist aide was gunned down in Moscow this week. Worse, many Russians have no political faith in the Duma. The link between the voter and the elected is tenuous. The former regards the latter as no different from the Soviet party fat cats, who care more about access to the trough than ideology. Once in office, they sweep off to Moscow to a faraway land of free apartments, $60,000 relocation allowances, chauffeured cars, medical services in elite clinics, spa holidays and air tickets. Its reputation reached its nadir in September 1996 when the newspaper, Moskovski Komsomolets, published an extraordinary memo written by cleaners, fed up with clearing up after nights of debauchery. They grumbled about cleaning up piles of excrement found on couches in an eight-floor hall. Chunks of leather had been cut out of the seats and backs of sofas, "as if someone was making a jacket". The issue now is whether the Duma can seize the chance to bring about change, and become a national weighty institution, or whether it will once again collapse in a gust of acrimonious hot air. Emergency talks on rouble Russia's acting prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin flew out of Moscow last night for emergency talks with the International Monetary Fund at the height of an economic crisis which saw the rouble in free-fall. Economic turmoil continued apace yesterday causing the Russian Central Bank to suspend trading on the rouble, and to declare the day's results "null and void", after the currency shed 10 per cent in the first few hours of the morning's business. The IMF said that the purpose of Mr Chernomyrdin's meeting with the IMF's managing director Michel Camdessus, due to be held in the Crimea, was "to discuss recent developments in Russia and their impact on the region, particularly Ukraine". -- Gregory Schwartz Dept. of Political Science York University 4700 Keele St. Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3 Canada Tel: (416) 736-5265 Fax: (416) 736-5686 Web: http://www.yorku.ca/dept/polisci --------------86CF36B554D792AB8092DC25 <HTML> <B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+2>Zhirinovsky, Lebed and communists join coalition talks</FONT></FONT></B> <BR>August 27, 1998 <BR><I>The Independent</I> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>By Phil Reeves in Moscow</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>Cock-fighting pit, hot-air factory, drinking den and knocking shop. The popular image of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, and the glossy-jowled men in grey suits who sit in it, could scarcely have been worse.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>Until now. Now the tectonic plates beneath Russia's political system are shifting, weakening the ground beneath the broken figure of President Boris Yeltsin. And suddenly, the honourable gentlemen have caught the whiff of power.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>Since his abrupt restoration to office on Sunday, Viktor Chernomyrdin, the acting prime minister, has been in intense talks with parliamentary leaders. He is wooing their support because he wants them to confirm him in his post.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>But he may also feel that, if he is to rule for long in a crisis-hit country, he will have to share some of his power. Or, at least, pretend to. Thus, he has referred to creating a broad-based government of "accord". Thus, to the approval of the left, he has disparaged monetary economics as not the only answer to Russia's woes.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>And thus, too, the wily premier-designate has shuffled from pillar to post, absorbing one demand after another.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>The loudest of these have come from the Duma's generally cautious Communist speaker, Gennady Seleznyov, who wants Mr Yeltsin's resignation, a constitution that gives more power to parliament, and a coalition government.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>Mr Chernomyrdin appears to be listening. Last night, before heading for Crimea, he was to meet Vladimir Zhirinovsky, mad-cap leader of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democrats, the second largest party, and Gennady Zyuganov, head of the dominant Communist faction.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>Intriguingly, he is also talking to Alexander Lebed, the popular ex-paratroop general. A commission, with representatives from both houses of parliament and the government, is drawing up proposals on policy. For now, consensus politics is all the rage; Tsars and radical reformers are out.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>"The Government used to treat the Duma as if it was only a mob of chatterboxes," said Yuri Krasnov, head of the Duma's scientific research department. "But now its role has drastically changed. The President and government knows there could be a social collapse here.That's forced them to turn their face to parliament."</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>This may be a fleeting taste for the legislature, but it is an important moment in its short history. The Duma was created after Mr Yeltsin's violent stand-off with parliament in 1993, using its pre-Revolutionary name. But it was restricted by the constitution which the President had secured by a rigged referendum in the same year, and which concentrated power on the Kremlin.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>It can pressure the government by, for instance, holding up the annual budget or the land code, or by refusing to verify the Start-2 arms agreement or, most recently, by rejecting parts of a package of economic austerity measures introduced by government, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>But it is fundamentally weak, especially when compared with the United States Congress. Its overall lack of clout was compounded by a lack of respect, born of lurid accounts of the wild behaviour of its some of its members and the staggeringly numerous - 10,000 by one estimate - aides and guards in their retinues.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>There have been stories of wild parties behind its sombre stone walls in downtown Moscow. Violence has never been far away. One member blew up his own office when a bomb went off by mistake; four were killed on the 1996 campaign trail. A Communist aide was gunned down in Moscow this week. Worse, many Russians have no political faith in the Duma. The link between the voter and the elected is tenuous. The former regards the latter as no different from the Soviet party fat cats, who care more about access to the trough than ideology.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>Once in office, they sweep off to Moscow to a faraway land of free apartments, $60,000 relocation allowances, chauffeured cars, medical services in elite clinics, spa holidays and air tickets.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>Its reputation reached its nadir in September 1996 when the newspaper, Moskovski Komsomolets, published an extraordinary memo written by cleaners, fed up with clearing up after nights of debauchery. They grumbled about cleaning up piles of excrement found on couches in an eight-floor hall. Chunks of leather had been cut out of the seats and backs of sofas, "as if someone was making a jacket".</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>The issue now is whether the Duma can seize the chance to bring about change, and become a national weighty institution, or whether it will once again collapse in a gust of acrimonious hot air.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0><B>Emergency talks on rouble</B></FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>Russia's acting prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin flew out of Moscow last night for emergency talks with the International Monetary Fund at the height of an economic crisis which saw the rouble in free-fall.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>Economic turmoil continued apace yesterday causing the Russian Central Bank to suspend trading on the rouble, and to declare the day's results "null and void", after the currency shed 10 per cent in the first few hours of the morning's business.</FONT></FONT> <P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE=+0>The IMF said that the purpose of Mr Chernomyrdin's meeting with the IMF's managing director Michel Camdessus, due to be held in the Crimea, was "to discuss recent developments in Russia and their impact on the region, particularly Ukraine".</FONT></FONT> <P>-- <BR>Gregory Schwartz <BR>Dept. of Political Science <BR>York University <BR>4700 Keele St. <BR>Toronto, Ontario <BR>M3J 1P3 <BR>Canada <P>Tel: (416) 736-5265 <BR>Fax: (416) 736-5686 <BR>Web: <A HREF="http://www.yorku.ca/dept/polisci">http://www.yorku.ca/dept/polisci</A> <BR> </HTML> --------------86CF36B554D792AB8092DC25--
