YELTSIN CAN GET RE-ELECTED, BUT IS HE ABLE TO GOVERN?

By Bruce W. Nelan

Boris Yeltsin came back twice last week. He wrapped up his re-election triumph at the polls, then reappeared in his Kremlin office looking better than his supporters at home and abroad had feared he might. Amid rumors of more heart problems, he had canceled his public appearances a week before the second round of balloting. But there he was at his desk last Thursday, smiling and conferring with Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin on who will be in the next Cabinet. Yeltsin called in television crews to film a short victory statement, in which he told the Russian people he was proud of them for making the election "free and fair." He took a call from Bill Clinton, and they chatted for 25 minutes. Later a White House official said Yeltsin had confessed to campaign fatigue and was planning to take a vacation after his inauguration on Aug. 9.

Yeltsin has managed to get re-elected, but can he govern? At 65, he is already well past the average life-span of Russian men, and since July 1995 he has had at least two episodes of myocardial ischemia, a shortage of blood supply to the heart. He also has a long pattern of rising to crises and then withdrawing into spells of depression and heavy drinking, though this time he promised voters he would not "go into hibernation." He cannot afford to. Reform of the Russian economy is still a work in progress, and his lieutenants are already circling one another in preparation for a power struggle. If he is not in charge, things could fall apart.

No one outside Yeltsin's inner council knows just what ailed him before last week's election. Officially he had a cold and had lost his voice. That is what his wife Naina said, explaining that he seldom got more than four hours of sleep a night during the campaign. In his made-for-television appearances just before last week's voting, he looked pale and stiff, but an old back injury often makes him move awkwardly. Doctors working for U.S. intelligence agencies tried some long-range diagnosis and concluded that Yeltsin probably was not suffering a recurrence of ischemia. More likely a touch of flu or another virus, they thought. But some Russian officials were told it was heart trouble.

While Yeltsin looked much improved at the end of the week, his illness touched off another round of speculation about who would succeed him. The Russian constitution provides that if the President dies in office, the Prime Minister temporarily takes over, pending a new election within three months. Prime Minister Chernomyrdin would be a leading candidate in such an election, as would Yeltsin's new security adviser, Alexander Lebed, and several others.

Lebed has already proved his vote-getting ability, winning almost 15% in the first round last June. But now that he is on the official stage in Moscow, he is turning into something of a loose cannon in the eyes of his government colleagues. In a series of public statements Lebed called Mormons "scum," told a visitor not to talk "like a Jew," and suggested the position of Vice President should be re-established, with himself in the role. As a strongman, "I look more like a Vice President," he told state television. "I need more powers," he said, even though he described himself as "a semi-democrat" at best. In an indirect attack on Chernomyrdin, who retains close links with the natural-gas industry he once headed, Lebed accused the "energy barons" of accumulating "overwhelming influence." Lebed was bold enough last week to send Yeltsin a list of names he thought should be selected for the next Cabinet, including his nominees for the Defense Ministry and the Federal Security Service, the domestic successor to the KGB.

Lebed was important to Yeltsin's re-election, so Chernomyrdin has loyally kept silent during most of these provocations. Now that Yeltsin has renominated him as Prime Minister, and now that Duma speaker Gennadi Seleznyov, a top Communist leader, has indicated he will not oppose him, Chernomyrdin is firing back. Yeltsin, he told reporters, had instructed him to put together a list of Cabinet members for the President's approval. "I have never delegated any of my powers to anyone, and I will not," he said. As to the vice presidency, says Chernomyrdin, that will have to wait at least four years: "I never heard of a country voting separately for a Vice President after the President has been elected." Nicholas Burns, spokesman of the U.S. State Department, says, "Right now Chernomyrdin is the second most powerful person in Russia." As Prime Minister, Chernomyrdin has been No. 2 all along. The positions Lebed has been given are purely advisory, and he could be dismissed from them at any time. The Yeltsin government, a Russian politician says, "might well start thinking in terms of cutting Lebed down to size." To dismiss him out of hand would be inviting a backlash from Lebed's nationalist backers, but he will probably be kept focused on the tough tasks of fighting organized crime and corruption and reforming the hard-pressed military. Says Chernomyrdin: "As for security and order, there will be plenty of work for everyone." Lebed's political role, which was to get Yeltsin re-elected, may be over.

Chernomyrdin rejects the spate of warnings, including some from Lebed, that Russia's economy is heading for a crisis later this year because of Yeltsin's campaign promises. "There will be no crisis next fall," he says. Maybe not. While Yeltsin made a lot of pork-barrel promises, no one knows how much he has actually paid out. International Monetary Fund officials say Russia was within its guidelines for June.

Even so, there are plenty of minicrises coming. Privatization is lagging; agriculture is unreformed; the government is not collecting the taxes it is owed; and industrial production is still falling. Lebed and Chernomyrdin are sparring, and the Duma is looking for ways to assert its authority. A strong, engaged President may be able to sort it all out, and Yeltsin's supporters hope he has the heart for it.

--By Bruce W. Nelan. Reported by Dean Fischer/Washington and Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow

With reporting by DEAN FISCHER/WASHINGTON AND YURI ZARAKHOVICH/MOSCOW