Ex-Vice President to Run for Yeltsin’s Post

Former Vice President Alexander V. Rutskoi, the decorated Afghan War veteran who led a deadly revolt against President Boris N. Yeltsin in 1993, on Sunday launched another attempt at unseating his rival by declaring he will be a candidate in next year’s presidential election.

At a convention of his nationalist Power political movement, supporters nominated the 47-year-old for the June, 1996, balloting.

Rutskoi, who spent five months at Lefortovo Prison in Moscow after Yeltsin sent tanks to crush the October, 1993, armed uprising, used his moment in the political spotlight to accuse the incumbent of plotting to postpone elections with a referendum on extending the current presidential term for four more years.

But because Yeltsin’s popularity rating has fallen to as little as 6% in the latest polls, a referendum to prolong his rule would be a risky undertaking and a move that would further alienate Western supporters. Diplomats and political observers said they doubted Rutskoi’s allegation.

In his convention speech, Rutskoi lashed out at Yeltsin’s policies, claiming they had “caused direct damage to Russian statehood,” and urged the president’s ouster for the good of the country.

Rutskoi also vowed to see Russia reunited with Slavic brothers in Ukraine and Belarus, a call likely to stir up the Russian minorities in both newly independent countries as well as irritate the nations’ leaders.

Now shorn of the beard and military garb he sported after his release from prison, Rutskoi joins an expanding crowd of presidential contenders who have openly announced their candidacies, hinted broadly or begun stumping.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev has strongly implied that he will be a candidate against Yeltsin, and prominent democratic reform advocate Grigory A. Yavlinsky has likewise indicated he will run.

But Yeltsin’s greatest challenge may come from ultranationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, whose diplomatic high jinks and wild promises of overnight prosperity are dismissed as empty rhetoric by political observers but increasingly find resonance among the masses.

Although still in the single-digit doldrums in surveys of political leanings, Zhirinovsky now often outpolls Yeltsin and has embarked on an active campaign to win hearts and minds in the impoverished provinces.