Should Yeltsin Step Down?

The chairman of the Duma' commission on impeaching President Boris Yeltsin told journalists that the commission had no intention of terminating its work. It just works in another rhythm.When the deputies were afraid of losing their seats they demanded the commission work as fast as possible, hoping that it would be the decision on impeachment that was supposed to rescue the Duma.

The list of accusations imputed by the deputies to Yeltsin makes you feel like you are dealing with a revolt in a madhouse - one can find here the destruction of the Soviet Union, a coup d'Оtat organized by Yeltsin in 1993, even genocide against own people... But it is, so to say, the Communist view of the history which does not differ a lot from that of Stalinist times. Another voice - that of General Andrei Nikolaev heading the Union of sovereignty of the people and labor made me look more carefully at Yeltsin's impeachment issue. Nikolaev called the Russian leader, for the sake of saving the homeland, to give up his presidency and announce a new presidential election not later than for September 1999.

Former frontier-guard Nikolaev speaks by voice of Moscow's mayor Yury Luzhkov. It was this educated General whom Luzhkov had selected for public presentation, as it were. And when Nikolaev speaks about Yeltsin's dismissal it is not just words. When Luzhkov, who earlier was afraid even to hint at his own presidential ambitions, now is speaking loudly about them in the background of Nikolaev's appeals, it can mean that the elite does not take Yeltsin and his nearest retinue into account any longer. It wants only one thing from the President: to step down and enable it to share power. As soon as possible!

Well, Yeltsin himself is guilty of such a situation. He has lost the initiative and is no longer himself. Yeltsin's last move - appointing Kirienko Premier in an attempt to save the economy - was nullified a few months later by the very logic of crisis development, Chernomyrdin's clumsy return, and pushing Yeltsin aside from state affairs. It is not the question whether Yeltsin steps down or finishes his tenure because it seems that he will not be himself anymore. The question is: what will be after Yeltsin?