Yeltsin’s Pick for Prime Minister Wins Approval

Deputies in Russia’s lower house of parliament, voting to save their own jobs, caved in to President Boris N. Yeltsin on Friday and confirmed Sergei V. Kiriyenko, 35, his nominee for prime minister.

While Communists and liberals alike protested Yeltsin’s choice of the boyish political newcomer to hold Russia’s No. 2 post, the Duma deputies yielded to the president rather than face early elections and the loss of their government perks.

Voting in secret to protect their reputations, the deputies reversed two earlier votes and approved the appointment by a 251-25 margin.

Kiriyenko, a former banker, oil company executive and Cabinet minister, needed 226 votes from the Duma’s 450 members to prevail.

Yeltsin, who was required by the constitution to dissolve the Duma if it rejected his nominee a third time, hailed the vote as “a victory of reason over emotions.”

“I am happy that the Russian state has emerged from this prolonged government crisis with honor, that it has not lost any of its prestige, that it has preserved peace and calm in the country,” Yeltsin said in a televised address after the decision.

Kiriyenko’s confirmation ends a month of political upheaval that followed Yeltsin’s abrupt dismissal of Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin and his entire 30-member Cabinet on March 23.

The confirmation took on special importance because, under Russia’s Constitution, Kiriyenko would temporarily assume the presidency and call new elections if Yeltsin--now 67 and in poor health--were to die in office.

Kiriyenko, who demonstrated both diplomacy and firmness during his confirmation battle, thanked the Duma for its “courage” in approving him.

“Today’s vote clearly showed that neither we nor you need great tremors,” the new prime minister said. “All of us need a great Russia.”

Kiriyenko is expected to continue the course of privatizing government-controlled industry while seeking to stimulate Russia’s stumbling economy.

Under Yeltsin’s timetable, he must propose a new Cabinet to the president by next week. None of the other ministers need the Duma’s confirmation.

“During just this one month alone, a lot of important and urgent problems have piled up,” Yeltsin said. “But today, I’d like to say that a new stage begins in the work of the federal executive branch. All our problems are well known. We also know what to do and how. Now we need to act dynamically and correctly.”

The standoff between the president and the Duma over Kiriyenko’s appointment ended in a far more civilized fashion than Yeltsin’s clash with Russia’s Soviet-era parliament in 1993. Facing constant opposition and the threat of impeachment by the Supreme Soviet, Yeltsin dissolved that body and called for adoption of a new constitution that gave parliament less authority. When deputies then refused his order to leave their headquarters, the president ordered tanks to shell the building.

In the end, Yeltsin was able to force through a constitution that gives him tremendous powers--including a provision requiring him to dissolve the Duma if it does not confirm his nominee for prime minister the third time a name is submitted.

Yeltsin, an unpredictable ruler who dislikes having subordinates who could become potential rivals, unexpectedly dumped Chernomyrdin last month after powerful businessmen quietly began backing the prime minister as a presidential candidate in 2000, when Yeltsin’s term expires.

At first, Yeltsin announced that he would serve as acting prime minister as well as president.

But within hours, the Kremlin announced that Yeltsin had chosen Kiriyenko, a newcomer to the Cabinet, as his nominee for prime minister. The pick was a shock because few had heard of the soft-spoken fuel and energy minister, who had been in his post for four months.

Kiriyenko has been best known as a protege of Boris Y. Nemtsov, a first deputy prime minister and another potential successor to Yeltsin. But in the stormy confirmation process, Kiriyenko distinguished himself as a knowledgeable, strong-minded politician who could weather criticism and seek to build consensus.

Rejecting Kiriyenko in its first two votes, the Communist-dominated Duma tried to wring concessions from him and influence his choice of a new Cabinet.

But, by all accounts, he did not succumb to the pressure to win his post by making deals on the side.

“Now that Kiriyenko has been confirmed,” Yeltsin said, “I can tell you frankly that I liked the way he behaved all these four weeks. I liked the way he withheld blows and rejected all blackmailing. I liked the way he took his examination three times with dignity and courage.”

Skeptics, however, are still unconvinced that Kiriyenko has the ability and experience to take Russia’s dysfunctional, criminalized economy and transform it into a rational commercial system.

“Changing something for the better in this country over the short period of time Kiriyenko will have is a tall order,” said Leonid Radzikhovsky, a columnist for the daily newspaper Segodnya. “In order to achieve it, a person like Lenin or Bismarck or Roosevelt is needed. Kiriyenko is too weak for the enormousness of the task.”

His appointment was strongly opposed by the Communist Party, the Duma’s largest faction, which laments the loss of government control over the nation’s industry.

Communist Party leader Gennady A. Zyuganov complained that holding the vote by secret ballot was unfair because deputies could escape accountability. Most of the 135 Communist deputies abstained.

Kiriyenko was also opposed by the 44-member Yabloko faction, the Duma’s most liberal wing, because of his ties to powerful businessmen who have taken control of much of the country’s economy.

“One prime minister who belonged to one oligarchic group is being replaced by another prime minister who belongs to another oligarchic group,” said Grigory A. Yavlinsky, a Yabloko leader, in a slap at both Kiriyenko and Chernomyrdin.

But the realists in the Duma voted to save their own skins. If the Duma had been dissolved, its members would have lost their staff, free travel privileges, cars, free long-distance phone calls, free health care and immunity from prosecution.

Although Yeltsin is unpopular and would have been unlikely to win a Duma more to his liking, new elections could have been even more risky for many deputies, who could have faced strong challenges in their districts.

“I voted for the preservation of the [Duma],” said Nikolai Kharitonov, leader of the 35-deputy Agrarian faction. “We should not act like first-graders who took their school bags and went home because of their resentment against the teacher.”

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His To-Do List

A look at challenges facing Russia’s new Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko, who was approved by parliament Friday:

OVERDUE WAGES: Millions of workers and pensioners have gone unpaid for months.

PRIVATIZATION: Tycoons have been acquiring state properties far below market value.

NEW TAX CODE: Many individuals evade taxes under a confusing tax code with little enforcement.

MILITARY REFORM: Yeltsin has pledged to cut and professionalize the bloated and demoralized military.