In the Kremlin, the Lines of Succession Appear Blurred : Russia: Premier seems to be heir apparent, but looks can be deceiving.

Observers scanning the Kremlin for clues to who will succeed ailing President Boris N. Yeltsin might conclude that Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin is destined to rule Russia next.

As the constitutionally designated heir apparent and steward of a government that has brought about the first flickers of economic stability, the 57-year-old technocrat looks poised to assume the presidency if Yeltsin fails to survive his current term or decides against seeking another.

But looks can be deceiving in Russia, where much of the power play takes place behind closed doors and the latent influences of dictatorship undermine the best of intentions.

Chernomyrdin is no favorite of the military and intelligence chieftains who form a close circle around the unsteady Yeltsin.

As prime minister, he is held responsible by many voters for living conditions that are still pitiful, even if improving.

The jowly former Communist who made a career in the gas industry is also sorely lacking in charisma, and the biggest encumbrance to his would-be candidacy is that Communist and nationalist rivals for the presidency are free to ravage his track record, while tradition and decorum forbid Chernomyrdin to admit that he hopes to run.

“If Yeltsin chooses to leave the political arena, then Chernomyrdin would have good chances to succeed him. But those chances would be better now than later,” said Nikolai Svanidze, a prominent political analyst and host of the nightly news program “Details.”

Svanidze was alluding to the uncertainty about whether Yeltsin intends to seek reelection.

Despite his recurring bouts of myocardial ischemia, a condition that constricts the blood supply to the heart, Yeltsin is said by his aides to be angling for another five-year term as head of state.

The powerful presidential security entourage headed by Gen. Alexander V. Korzhakov, a former KGB officer, has been spreading the word that Yeltsin’s reelection campaign is already in motion.

Kremlinologist Michael McFaul, a Stanford University professor and analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, quoted a Korzhakov aide as saying that “we’re full steam ahead” in waging a bid for reelection.

Other analysts believe that Chernomyrdin has been set up by Yeltsin’s circle to take the blame in the event of a poor showing by centrist forces in Dec. 17 parliamentary elections.

Yeltsin chose Chernomyrdin to head a political bloc called Our Home Is Russia, which aims to galvanize mainstream voters and unite the fractured center against resurgent Communist and nationalist parties.

But Our Home has fared badly in regional elections since its founding in April, prompting Yeltsin to distance himself from the movement and others to doubt that the Kremlin hierarchy is reconciled to an orderly transfer of the leadership mantle.

“There is no future for many of those in the current administration in the event of a Chernomyrdin leadership,” said Konstantin P. Eggert, international affairs analyst for the newspaper Izvestia.

With so many Russians ready to side with political figures promising a strong hand to rein in crime and corruption, a conspiracy of “power ministers”--those in charge of the army, police and intelligence--could rule from behind the shield of an inactive Yeltsin or, in the case of his death, impose a state of emergency under the pretext of enhancing security.

Western leaders, including senior members of the Clinton Administration, express confidence that any succession in Russia will play out peacefully and according to law.

But those closer to the clandestine maneuverings in and around the Kremlin acknowledge that they are increasingly concerned that such official pronouncements are wishful thinking.

“He doesn’t seem to be on the A-list of those going in to see the president,” one Moscow-based Western diplomat said of Chernomyrdin, who has been in to see Yeltsin only twice since the latter’s Oct. 26 hospitalization.

Nevertheless, Chernomyrdin is clearly grooming himself for the possibility that Yeltsin will bow out.

He has been cutting a high profile as the parliamentary campaign gets under way and dozens of parties jockey for the apathetic electorate’s attention.

In their uphill quest to broaden Our Home’s support base, the stodgy stalwarts of the status quo are courting the youth vote with showy performances by the likes of American rapper Hammer and dance band Kool and the Gang.

Chernomyrdin has been stumping in the provinces to show his movement’s concern for the hardships suffered outside the capital, and he has given a flood of carefully controlled interviews to Russian media. Yet he has maintained the illusion of accessibility without risking exposure to in-depth questioning by more aggressive Russian or foreign media.

Typical of the personal glimpses he has given the public was a frothy interview about his home life in the November issue of Working Woman magazine. The article was head-lined “I love home, my grandchildren and a lot of work.”

Married with two grown sons and two grandchildren, Chernomyrdin strikes a folksy pose in shorts and sandals and an accordion on his lap in one family photo, and he appears to be seeking the female vote with his boast that he makes his own meat dumplings, including the dough, “which needs to be worked by strong male hands.”

But whatever stock he might have gained with female readers was probably squandered by his unabashed admission that he usually gives his wife money to buy her own birthday and holiday presents.

Co-workers and political colleagues praise his energy and determination. But most shy away from calling themselves friends, describing the burly leader as a man with little personal life.

Eugenia K. Selikhova worked as a deputy to Chernomyrdin for the decade he spent at the state Gasprom enterprise that is now Russia’s leading hard-currency magnet. She described him as an industrialist wholly immersed in his work.

The fourth of five children born to a truck driver’s family in the Orenburg region about 800 miles southeast of Moscow, Chernomyrdin cuts a Horatio Alger figure with his rise to the highest echelons of power and, reportedly, great wealth.

As head of Gasprom, Russia’s first privatized concern, Chernomyrdin was in a position to acquire considerable amounts of stock in the lucrative enterprise.

He has denied that he retains a stake in the huge energy monopoly--a claim impossible to prove or disprove in a country lacking financial disclosure laws.

Opposition politicians insist that Chernomyrdin is one of Russia’s richest men.

But the scope of his wealth is less politically troubling for the prime minister than the state of the economy he presides over.

Although inflation has slackened, a production free fall has been arrested and millions eat, dress and live better than they used to, the popular judgment of the post-Communist era is that eking out an existence has become more painful.

And for Chernomyrdin, at the helm of the government, that consensus complicates campaigning.

Our Home official Sergei G. Belyayev pooh-poohs the notion that Chernomyrdin is hobbled by Yeltsin’s reluctance to renounce another presidential run. He optimistically insists that voters will recognize the leadership strengths of the prime minister and support his party.

“People want stability. They are tired of all the ups and downs,” said Belyayev, casting Chernomyrdin and Our Home Is Russia as an alternative to the unexpected.

Stability, even of the stodgy variety, is powerfully attractive in Russia today because much of the population has been disillusioned by shrinking incomes, eroding international influence and bitter internal ethnic and national disputes.

Analysts who argue that Chernomyrdin still looks poised to succeed Yeltsin point out that naysayers were wrong when they warned that he would retreat from reforms after his appointment in December, 1992. They claim that those forecasting a frustrated succession could be misguided by Russians’ tendency to always look on the dark side.

Chernomyrdin and his movement command no more than 7% to 8% of support in Russia’s fractured opinion polls, but he has had spurts of popularity that some believe could be reinvigorated.

The prime minister’s support peaked in June, when he interceded to bring an end to a deadly hostage crisis in the southern town of Budennovsk while Yeltsin was in Canada.

In a masterstroke of public relations, the prime minister allowed television cameras to film his tense negotiations with Chechen militia leader Shamil Basayev, who eventually freed his more than 1,000 captives in exchange for safe passage into Chechnya and negotiations for peace.

Those talks produced a partial Chechnya peace accord in July, but it has foundered in recent months, taking Chernomyrdin’s image as a can-do leader down with it.

Western diplomats often refer to the Budennovsk incident--at times with more hope than conviction--in their assertions that Chernomyrdin would ably assume the presidency in the event Yeltsin dies in office.

“He’s proved himself capable of leadership under very tough conditions,” one Western envoy said. “There would be no reason for concern in Western capitals if he were to assume the presidency. The only question is whether a normal, constitutional succession would be allowed to take place.”

That caveat looms large over the unsettled political horizon as Yeltsin recovers at the Kremlin hospital in the cocoon of his shadowy security men and select advisers, who rarely consult with Chernomyrdin.