The Guardian Tuesday September 1, 1998 MPs PUSH YELTSIN TO THE EDGE By James Meek in Moscow Russia's political foes, President Boris Yeltsin and parliament, were last night locked in their potentially most dangerous confrontation after angry MPs dealt a humiliating defeat to Viktor Chernomyrdin, the acting prime minister supposed to rescue the country from the economic abyss. After a contemptuous 251 to 94 vote in the state Duma against his becoming prime minister, Mr Chernomyrdin declared he would begin forming a government anyway. He was immediately renominated for the post by Mr Yeltsin. With the Duma seemingly set on rejecting his choice again, and Mr Yeltsin equally stubborn in nominating no other candidate, parliament could be dissolved within a fortnight, setting the country on an unknown political path. With all large business transactions frozen for the second week running, and shops running out of the stocks they bought before the rouble plunged, ordinary Russians will start to feel the pinch within days. President Bill Clinton, who arrives in Moscow today for a three-day visit, risks becoming a participant in the conflict between Mr Yeltsin, Mr Chernomyrdin and parliament. President Yeltsin, who has lost much of what remained of his authority, is likely to swagger with "friend Bill" as a badge of his weight in the world. The lack of a confirmed government will delay plans by Tony Blair to call an emergency meeting of Group of Seven ministers to discuss the Russian crisis. Mr Blair held a 20-minute telephone call with Mr Yeltsin last night. As chairman of G7, the Prime Minister told Mr Yeltsin the group was ready to help, but that it must be linked to Russia continuing a programme of economic reform, a Downing Street spokesman said. As concern grew about the impact of the Russian crisis and global market queasiness on the launch of the euro, the European Union finance commissioner, Yves-Thibault de Silguy, said the 11 countries due to launch the common currency next year should hold talks. The EU is Russia's largest trading partner. "Forty per cent of Russia's foreign trade is with Europe, and only 5 per cent is with the United States," Mr Silguy said. "But it's Clinton who's going to Russia on Tuesday. We have the means to act." There is still no clear sign of which way Moscow will move fiscally to head off the emergency, although the former Argentinian economics minister Domingo Cavallo, who stopped inflation with a currency squeeze and tough privatisation, arrived in Moscow to offer his advice. Few expected Mr Chernomyrdin to be backed by the Duma yesterday, but even he was taken aback by the attacks. Most speakers blamed his time as prime minister in 1992-98 for bringing Russia to its simultaneous debt default and devaluation two weeks ago. They demanded that Mr Yeltsin agree to a government formed by the parliamentary majority. "You would not be able to cope, and there would be a collapse still deeper than that which has already taken place," Gennady Zyuganov, the Communist leader and head of the dominant left-patriot coalition, told Mr Chernomyrdin. "The criminal-oligarchic authorities would be bloodier in future. A dictatorship would be guaranteed." He claimed he could call on the support of two-thirds of MPs and the upper house to have an effective coalition government in place before the end of the week. Earlier one of the most powerful Russian businessman, the close Chernomyrdin ally and backroom kingmaker Boris Berezovsky, said Mr Chernomyrdin's government should start working whatever the Duma decided. "President Boris Yeltsin wants Viktor Chernomyrdin to become the prime minister, and I do not recall a case such as this where he changed his mind," he said. Mr Chernomyrdin said after the vote yesterday that he would set up an acting government to begin work today. "A state cannot live without a government," he said. "Steps must be taken to pay arrears to the military, students and coal miners. I will deal with this." It was not clear where the money would come from, although Moscow is rife with rumours that the rouble-printing presses have already begun to turn. Most miners are owed back wages by semi-private coal companies rather than by the government. In yesterday's parliamentary debate the leader of the liberal Yabloko movement, Grigory Yavlinsky, reminded Mr Chernomyrdin that it was during his government that barter and IOUs became the dominant means of exchange in the economy that business became criminalised. "It was under this very prime minister that Russia became a world leader in corruption," he said. Mr Yavlinsky, who on Sunday said Yabloko was ready to form a government, called on Mr Yeltsin to resign. If parliament rejects his choice twice more, the president can dissolve it. ¿ Copyright Guardian Media Group plc.1998 -- 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
