WILL SERGEI KIRIYENKO HEAD THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT FOR YEARS OR DAYS?

The appointment of the former Fuel and Energy Minister of Russia, Sergei Kiriyenko, as Acting Prime Minister of the Russian Government looks, at first glance, even stranger than the dismissal of Viktor Chernomyrdin. If Chernomyrdin’s deposing could have been predicted some time ago, then no one could even imagine that 35-year-old Kiriyenko, who only a year ago was president of a provincial oil company, could become his successor. And, least of all, Kiriyenko himself.

Reporters who gathered Monday evening at the office of the Fuel and Energy Minister for a press conference were introduced to a pleasant-looking but slightly bewildered young man who could not give a proper answer to any of the questions involving their country’s future, even to such a simple question as whether he wanted to serve at the Chernomyrdin or the Chubais cabinet. “I’ve not been told yet” was his answer and is quite characteristic of the current state of affairs. The point is that Russian apparatchiks believe Kiriyenko is not ready to assume the premiership.

Does he have a chance to prepare himself? At present, Sergei Kiriyenko is conducting consultations on the formation of a new cabinet amid rumors that he is just a screen behind which Yeltsin is trying to hide his attempts to find a “real” premier who would be agreeable to the regional elite as well as to influential industrial and political circles. A whole series of governors and Duma legislators is named as possible candidates. One scenario might be that Kiriyenko would manage to break through the nettles of rumors, and Yeltsin would offer his candidacy to the Duma. Then he might survive the vote and become a real Premier. What then? Then he would be no worse than those before him. In fact, Kiriyenko is said to be a top professional and a perfect executive, someone who does not like to quarrel and who is open to compromise. But one should not seek in him — at least not now — those political ambitions which are so characteristic of, say, Chernomyrdin, Chubais, or Nemtsov. If Kiriyenko does become Prime Minis

ter, he will be a workhorse Premier of a workhorse government, whose main job will be settling economic problems. Unlike his predecessor, he is most likely to shun politicking, unless it affects directly the interests of the fuel-and-energy complex of Russia — in this area Kiriyenko is an expert who has his own views on things. As for the state of Russian-Ukrainian relationship under the Kiriyenko government, it is most likely to become the area where decisions will be made exclusively by the Presidential Administration and the Foreign Ministry. The head of government will step in only when it comes to paying off state debts and building new pipelines. As for other problems, and it will be difficult to explain him something in terms of political considerations or personal contacts. And what personal contacts can one speak of if Kiriyenko is young enough to be Kuchma’s or Pustovoitenko’s son rather than their colleague.

However, all this reasoning will be relevant provided that Kiriyenko is put into the post of Russian Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the situation around his appointment is so uncertain that he himself refuses to give any comment on it. “The last word is the President’s,” he declared.

Day’s Information:
Kiriyenko was born July 26, 1962, in the city of Sukhumi. In 1984, he graduated from the Institute of Water Transport Engineers in the city of Gorky. From July 1984 to December 1985, he served in the Soviet Army. From 1986 to 1991, Kiriyenko worked as a foreman at the Chervone Sormovo Shipbuilding Works, where he also held the post of the secretary of the Communist Youth League organization of a workshop and then that of the entire works. Then, he was appointed secretary of the Gorky Regional Komsomol Committee.

From October 1991 until January 1994, Kiriyenko was President of the AMK Concern. He was educated at the Academy of National Economy under the Russian Government, where he majored in banking.

Throughout the period of 1993-1997, he served as the chairman of the board of the Garantiya Commercial Bank in Nizhny Novgorod. Since March 1997, he acted as president of the all-Russian Norsi-Oil Company.

In May 1997, Kiriyenko was appointed as the First Deputy Minister of Oil and Energy of the Russian Federation, and in November 1997 — the Oil and Energy Minister.

Sergei Kiriyenko is married and has a son and a daughter.

COMMENTS
Yuri Luzhkov has declared that the government of Moscow will not back Sergei Kiriyenko, if he continues “Chubais’s economic course.” The Mayor has said that he does “not know Kiriyenko well” and that he is worried that the new acting Premier “has appeared in the government accidentally, on the recommendation of the former First Vice Premier Boris Nemtsov and has never before held a top executive position.”

In an interview with the Interfax news agency, Sergei Ivanenko, deputy chairman of the Yabloko parliamentary fraction, said that his faction will support Kiriyenko’s candidacy for the post of the Prime Minister if the Duma approves it and if “his anti-crisis program agrees with the basic goals and tasks of” the fraction.