Russian President Boris Yeltsin gambled on Sergei Kiriyenko and lost.
He bet he could take a political neophyte from the provinces with a good mind and a commitment to the free market and shove him and his policies down Russia’s throat. Instead, Kiriyenko is a discard, Russia is sinking in an economic crisis that knows no bottom, and Yeltsin has been forced to retreat into the arms of the professional dealmaker Viktor Chernomyrdin.
The stakes of Yeltsin’s gamble were huge, like so many things in Russia, and so might the losses be. Russia is in danger of being diverted from its path toward a free-market economy. Yeltsin, who already has lost popular support, now must struggle to retain his grip on power and protect his legacy.
The world, meanwhile, watches with an eye on Yeltsin’s political fortunes and an eye on Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
The 67-year-old president has defied so many physical and political odds that one learns not to count him out. Yet his options are few.
Russia’s newspapers are writing Yeltsin’s political obituary–not for the first time, it must be noted. Leftist legislators demand that he cede them some power or face an all-out political war. Analysts question whether he will even serve out the rest of a four-year term that ends in 2000.
With his reformers on the run, Yeltsin’s immediate goal appears to be survival. For that he places his hope in Chernomyrdin, his 60-year-old interim prime minister.
Having served five years as Yeltsin’s premier before being fired in March, Chernomyrdin knows how to deal with the many factions scrambling for influence in Russia’s political and economic circles. For his own political ends and not just Yeltsin’s, Chernomyrdin wants desperately to stabilize Russia’s economy. He also has long been deeply loyal to the president.
When Yeltsin underwent multiple-bypass heart surgery in 1996, he entrusted Russia’s nuclear arsenal to Chernomyrdin for a day. After Yeltsin dumped him as prime minister and criticized him for his lack of initiative on economic reforms, Chernomyrdin held his tongue and bided his time.
That time came in the last two weeks, as Russia’s economy edged toward meltdown.
The business tycoons who wield so much influence in Russia’s halls of power began casting about for a Kiriyenko replacement, and Chernomyrdin made his case. After Kiriyenko announced Aug. 17 the ruble would be allowed to devalue and Russia would default on some debts, pressure on the Kremlin grew.
Yeltsin’s choice was to stand behind his reformers and challenge the bankers, energy titans and Communists who were demanding Kiriyenko’s head, risking a political insurrection that could have cost him the Kremlin. Or he could cut his losses and fold.
According to news reports, Yeltsin’s closest advisers, including his daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, urged the president Saturday evening to dump Kiriyenko and turn to his old ally.
By Sunday night it was done. Yeltsin even went on national television the next day to anoint Chernomyrdin as his choice to take over the Kremlin in 2000.
“It seems to be the end of the Yeltsin era,” said Leonid Ionin, a political analyst at the Higher Economic School. “First, there’s the matter of his health. Second, he is no longer able to control the situation.
“He gave Chernomyrdin the opportunity to form a government independently, the opposite of what Yeltsin has always done before,” Ionin said. “I think that was Yeltsin’s preliminary farewell to power.”
If that is the case, and a consensus is growing that Yeltsin is indeed a spent force, his choice of Chernomyrdin makes sense.
Yeltsin fired Chernomyrdin in March, analysts suggested at the time, partly because he was eager to eliminate the powerful prime minister as a rival for the presidency in 2000. Given the current climate, a Yeltsin candidacy two years hence seems highly improbable.
“Yeltsin finally understands that he won’t be there in 2000,” said Yuri Levada, a pollster and analyst in Moscow. “If he did not understand that before, he understands it now.”
If the uncertainty surrounding the Kremlin deepens, it could complicate Russia’s foreign affairs. With President Clinton due to visit Moscow in a week for a summit with Yeltsin, U.S. officials are watching closely.
Clinton and Yeltsin talked by phone Tuesday. The economy was the main topic, White House and Kremlin officials said, though the two leaders also touched on other issues expected to be on next week’s agenda. Arms control is one sticky topic, as are efforts to control the flow of weapons and technology to countries such as Iran.
On the financial front, a likely subject of discussion was the markets’ vote of no-confidence Tuesday in the latest government shakeup, as the ruble plunged 9.2 percent, its sharpest drop in nearly four years. Trading by Russia’s Central Bank had to be suspended twice as the bank was overwhelmed by the demand for dollars.
Though U.S. officials express confidence in the staid Chernomyrdin, the White House has invested a lot of political capital in Yeltsin and would take a dim view of any events that would divert Russia from its path of reform.
Many opponents of those reforms detest Yeltsin, mainly for his role in the breakup of the Soviet Union, the dismantling of the communist system and the opening of Russia to the West and to free enterprise–the very things that bring Yeltsin acclaim abroad and promise to place him in history as a crucial figure at the end of the 20th Century.
The president’s supporters fear that should power pass to some of his rivals in the leftist or nationalist camps, Yeltsin or his family could face retribution, though Chernomyrdin probably would block any such effort. Less clear is whether he can protect Yeltsin’s reputation as a free marketeer and keep Russia on a path to reform.
Chernomyrdin pledges to do just that. Yet Kiriyenko’s economic program already is being diluted and could wind up dismantled, particularly if Chernomyrdin trades for political peace and opens up his government to leftist opponents.
“Chernomyrdin never even tried to cut spending,” said Boris Nemtsov, a Yeltsin protege who resigned from the Cabinet this week.
In an interview with the German news magazine Stern, Nemtsov criticized Chernomyrdin for abetting the so-called oligarchs who cheaply bought up government properties, built large fortunes and still avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes.
Yeltsin will argue that he had no choice. With the backing of his political party and some of the oligarchs, particularly in the oil and gas sector where he once worked, Chernomyrdin has his own base of support beyond the Kremlin. Kiriyenko, Nemtsov and the rest of the reformers had nothing but Yeltsin propping them up, and when the president sensed or was shown that he was too weak to protect them, he let them fall.
Even given Yeltsin’s history of comebacks, few Russians think he can regain the will or reclaim the power that allowed him to bully the parliament into obedience and take the gamble on Kiriyenko.
“Yeltsin has always demonstrated the most fantastic fighting abilities, even in the most hopeless situations, and for this very reason he always won,” said Otto Latsis, writing in Noviye Izvestia. “But there has been a psychological break. Left with nothing to fight for, he has become an unrecognizable person.”
Five months ago, back when Yeltsin was playing a familiar role, the strong but caring Czar Boris, he showed Kiriyenko around his new digs at Russia’s house of government. The scene was comical but charming, a jovial and lumbering Uncle Boris with a short and wide-eyed Kiriyenko in tow. Work hard, the president told his young choice for prime minister, and I will protect you.
It turned out that Yeltsin was making more of a bet than a pledge. Now having lost, it is himself Yeltsin is trying to protect.
