Yeltsin Survives

Having survived the Duma's bid to place impeachment on the national agenda, President Yeltsin now faces a battle with parliament…

Having survived the Duma's bid to place impeachment on the national agenda, President Yeltsin now faces a battle with parliament for the ratification of Mr Sergei Stepashin, his nominee for the position of prime minister. He does so with added strength following the failure of the impeachment motion. Although it was never likely that Mr Yeltsin would be put out of office, he would have been constitutionally deprived of his right to dissolve parliament had his opponents mustered the 300 votes necessary to start the impeachment process.

Now Mr Yeltsin can use the threat of dissolution to push Mr Stepashin's nomination past a reluctant Duma or, as he did eight months ago, he can agree to a compromise candidate at the last moment. In any case his range of actions has become considerably wider than it was prior to Saturday's vote.

This is not to say that Mr Yeltsin's problems and those of Russia are now about to be solved. The indications are to the contrary. After eight years of Mr Yeltsin's erratic rule, corruption is rampant. The state bureaucracy has become almost twice as bloated in numbers as its unwieldy Communist predecessor.

Progress towards democracy has been fast in theory but painfully slow in practice. The human rights situation leaves a great deal to be desired. Tens of thousands have died in an internal conflict. Billions of dollars in grants and credits from international organisations have vanished into offshore bank accounts.

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The 283 votes in favour of Mr Yeltsin's impeachment for starting the disastrous Chechen war were made up of Communists and their allies, right-wing nationalists, independents and the genuine democrats of Mr Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko party.

The madcap right-winger, Mr Vladimir Zhirinovsky, saved Mr Yeltsin's skin by ordering his deputies to abstain while even the right-of-centre deputies associated with Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin could not bring themselves to do more than opting out of the vote.

The failure of the impeachment motion should be seen less as a vote of confidence in Mr Yeltsin than an unwillingness on the part of many deputies to add fuel to the fires of Russia's instability. Although it is true that the Constitutional Court has ruled against Mr Yeltsin's running for a third term, there are fears that this may not prevent him from staying in power after his term is over.

The very suggestion of a Russia after Yeltsin has drawn protests from the president's more sycophantic supporters. The editorial columns of Moscow's newspapers abound with fears that the declaration of a state of emergency may be used to cancel next year's presidential elections.

Others believe that the threat of Mr Stepashin as a Russian Pinochet curbing democracy for the sake of economic reform may have been used simply to cow a notoriously pusillanimous parliament. In either case, the prospects for Russia do not look bright.