Mayor Doubts Yeltsin’s Vow of Just 1 Term

A longtime supporter of Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin--and one of the country’s fastest-rising political stars--Monday questioned the sincerity of Yeltsin’s vow not to run for a second term, pointing out that “the next election is five years off.”

Anatoly Sobchak, the mayor of St. Petersburg, who is himself seen by many as a future presidential candidate, made the remark at a round-table meeting with Times editors at which he was equally caustic about others in the Russian political field.

In fact, Sobchak said, the Russians should make a psychological examination a condition of a presidential candidacy. That way, he said, politicians who see themselves as Yeltsin’s presumptive successors would automatically be weeded out.

The mayor was in Los Angeles to launch a local branch of the St. Petersburg Foundation, an organization aimed at retooling his city’s economy. St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad, is one of Los Angeles’ sister cities.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Sobchak also called for a sort of “new Peace Corps” through which retired business and management experts could be enlisted to help shepherd business projects in the post-Soviet economy.

However, the most provocative of Sobchak’s remarks involved the Russian political front, where painful reforms designed to propel Russia into a market economy have unleashed loud criticism from Yeltsin’s opponents. Last week, the Russian president said the opposition will not force him to quit the presidency, but he added that he has no plans to run for a second term in 1996.

“Well, the next election is five years off, so it’s easy now for Yeltsin to say this,” said Sobchak, speaking through a Russian interpreter.

He also criticized former Soviet Communist Party leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, saying Gorbachev was too quick last week to call for Yeltsin’s political obituary.

Taking shots at Yeltsin “looks like a personal attack,” Sobchak said, adding that it is Gorbachev who is washed up in Russia.

“Gorbachev doesn’t have social or political power,” he said, replying to a question about the possibilities of a comeback for the former general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.