Russian Lawmakers Reelect Prime Minister

Members of Russia’s Communist-led parliament, apparently not willing to risk open conflict with recently reelected President Boris N. Yeltsin, gritted their teeth and voted moderate reformer Viktor S. Chernomyrdin back into power as prime minister Saturday.

The vote could have turned into an ugly fight, marring Yeltsin’s new term, if parliament had stuck to its original intention of throwing out his favored candidate on the grounds that Chernomyrdin’s pro-Western economic reforms had lost Russia its wealth and self-respect.

Instead, deputies in the Duma, the lower house of parliament, voted 314 to 85 to rubber-stamp the appointment.

A relieved Chernomyrdin took the podium, thanked deputies “from the bottom of my heart” and said a new government will be appointed within a week.

“There was no alternative,” liberal former Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev, now a deputy in the Duma, said as his subdued colleagues filed out of the chamber. “I think the parliamentarians showed considerable realism.”

With politics now back on an even keel after months of electoral upheaval, Yeltsin--who has faced persistent rumors about his health--and his government have their hands free to try to end the latest outbreak of fighting between rebels and Russian troops in the separatist republic of Chechnya.

But Chernomyrdin hurriedly washed his hands of any personal peacemaking initiatives. Although he is seen as a dove on Chechnya, the peace talks he initiated last year led nowhere.

On Saturday, Chernomyrdin repeated the standard formula of Moscow politicians that the 20-month war must be ended by talks rather than fighting. But he passed all responsibility for containing the bloodshed to Yeltsin security boss Alexander I. Lebed, a retired general who had been appointed just a few hours earlier to run Russia’s dealings with Chechnya.

“Lebed is a military man, and he is more qualified to deal with such problems,” Chernomyrdin said. “I believe that he will, and he must, cope with his task.”

Lebed, who before he joined Yeltsin’s team last month was admired for his outspoken opposition to the unpopular war, has steered clear of the politically dangerous issue ever since.

After his appointment was announced Saturday, a spokesman told Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency that possible Lebed trips to the war zone had “not yet been approved.”

Horrifying television footage Saturday of screaming toddlers running from artillery assaults and families streaming out of the Chechen capital, Grozny, with pitiful handfuls of clothes and food belied statements by Russia’s interior and defense ministers that their troops had “reversed the situation” and taken most of the city back from rebels who stormed it at dawn Tuesday.

But a propaganda war being waged by both sides made it impossible to verify who was really winning the battle for Grozny.

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Rebel spokesman Movladi Udugov said Russia had lost 1,000 soldiers since Tuesday. Moscow put the figure at 118. No one offered a death toll for civilians caught in the cross-fire.

Determinedly focusing on the good news from Moscow rather than the bad news from Grozny, Yeltsin’s chief of staff, Anatoly B. Chubais, proclaimed parliament’s confirmation of Chernomyrdin “yet another victory” for Yeltsin, who beat a Communist electoral challenge for the presidency last month.

But legislators, whose power has been whittled away in a four-year war of attrition with the reformist government and president, were not so sure.

The changeable Yeltsin has swung back toward liberal advisors since the election after months of favoring conservatives, apparently scaring the old guard into believing that he might put forward an even more pro-Western, reform-minded prime minister--such as the liberal Chubais--if they refused Chernomyrdin.

“People say Yeltsin won the presidential election because people were too scared to follow their conscience and vote against him. Well, the same thing happened today,” Communist Deputy Ruslan G. Gostiyev said. “I think the possibility that--if they turned down Chernomyrdin--one of these Chubaises would be chosen, or Yeltsin would dissolve the Duma altogether, terrified a lot of deputies.”

Chernomyrdin sweet-talked the deputies with a honeyed speech full of lavish promises.

Next year will be economically better in every way, he suggested. State spending on the poor, the sick and the elderly will be doubled. At the same time, inflation will drop below 1% a month, he predicted. Even the harvest will be one-fifth bigger, he said.

All these changes would be financed by more efficient tax collection and tougher control of alcohol sales, Chernomyrdin added.