THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 6, 1996 TAG: 9607060022
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 50 lines
Boris Yeltsin has won a convincing 54-40 victory over retro-communist Gennadiy Zyuganov to retain the presidency of Russia. That leaves just one question unanswered. Who's in charge?
Yeltsin was AWOL from the campaign trail repeatedly. His health is questionable. He allegedly suffers from heart disease, alcoholism and depression. And if the country is in unsteady hands when he's on deck, it is completely unclear whose hand is going to be on the tiller if he's incapacitated.
If the answer is Gen. Alexander Lebed, there's cause for alarm. Yeltsin brought Lebed on board in order to create a coalition capable of ensuring that communism wouldn't make a comeback.
But Lebed will now be security chief, a powerful post traditionally abused. Not only is the general just the man to continue the tradition, but he obviously has higher ambitions. He's a nationalist, but no democrat. He could prove to be a dangerous man.
The Clinton White House openly backed Yeltsin as the only viable choice and crowed at news of his victory. Certainly a communist win would have been a step in the wrong direction, but a weakened Yeltsin whipsawed between communist diehards and nationalist zealots is nothing to look forward to.
Especially when one considers the huge problems Yeltsin faces. The government is broke and will have to figure out how to pay its own workers and millions of pensioners in the months ahead. Market reforms have caused plenty of pain so far, but increased productivity hasn't materialized to ease the pain.
That's partly because market reforms have been implemented tentatively and inconsistently making foreign investment slow to arrive. Those woes have been exacerbated by a pervasive corruption, black marketeering and organized crime. They have confirmed the worst fears of anti-capitalists.
Lebed's in charge of cracking down on crime, and a firm response is obviously overdue. But he may prove to be a loose cannon unable to discriminate between freedom and license. He's already made noises about cracking down on religious freedom too.
The election suggests that the Russians have turned their back on communism. They aren't going back to that. But the precarious state of Yeltsin's health, the elevation of Lebed, the failure to complete market reforms, a society wracked with crime and a looming financial crisis all mean it's too early to know what Russia is going forward to.
It matters because a nation of more than 160 million still armed with nuclear weapons and straddling Europe and Asia can cause a lot of damage if it takes a turn away from capitalism and democracy and toward authoritarianism, ultra-nationalism or anarchy. by CNB