After Firing His Cabinet, Yeltsin Calls for ‘New Views’

Hours after abruptly firing his prime minister and 30-member Cabinet, President Boris N. Yeltsin went on national television Monday and declared that “new views and fresh approaches” are needed to revive Russia’s struggling economy.

A grim Yeltsin did not explain what prompted him to jettison his top officials without warning but said the government must move more aggressively to improve the living conditions for the Russian people.

The president, whose unpredictability has long confounded friends and foes alike, appeared most of all to target Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, whose own presidential aspirations posed an increasing challenge to the frequently ailing Yeltsin.

“The country needs a new team that would be capable of achieving real and tangible results,” Yeltsin said. “We have brought about certain progress in the economy. But we are still badly lagging behind in the social sphere. People do not feel any change for the better.”

In dismissing Chernomyrdin, who had served as prime minister for more than five years, Yeltsin gave him the job of preparing a campaign for presidential elections scheduled for 2000. But it was unclear whose campaign he was supposed to organize--his own, Yeltsin’s or that of a candidate to be named later. The president is currently prohibited from seeking a third term.

“You will learn two years from now or a bit earlier,” Chernomyrdin told reporters obliquely. But he accepted his dismissal stoically, saying, “This is not a catastrophe and there is no government crisis in the country.”

Yeltsin, 67, who spent last week recovering from a bad sore throat, sought to make a clear statement to his rivals and the nation that he remains firmly in power. In his brief televised address, Yeltsin declared that he would temporarily serve as prime minister as well as president. But shortly afterward, the Kremlin announced that Sergei V. Kiriyenko--the just-fired fuel and energy minister--would become acting prime minister.

“I believe that the latest events came as a surprise to many,” Kiriyenko, 35, told reporters, “and I believe that most of all they were a surprise to me.”

Under Russia’s constitution, the president’s firing of the prime minister automatically results in dismissal of all Cabinet ministers. The president asked most to stay in their posts while he chooses successors and many could be named to the same jobs or other top posts in the shuffle. Yeltsin expects to complete the reorganization by April 10, a spokesman said.

But in addition to Chernomyrdin, Yeltsin singled out two controversial figures for immediate dismissal: First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly B. Chubais, mastermind of his economic policies; and Interior Minister Anatoly S. Kulikov, the only hawk from the Chechen war era who had remained in power.

Analysts said Kulikov, as powerful commander of the nation’s police agencies, was a growing irritant to Yeltsin because of his apparent desire to become an independent political force. “It has been clear for quite a while that Kulikov has been playing his own political game, and he was not particularly secretive about it,” said Igor M. Klyamkin, director of the Institute of Political Analysis.

Some suspect that Kulikov and Chernomyrdin had both become too closely allied for Yeltsin’s comfort with powerful banking and commercial interests that have emerged in the new Russia. “But Yeltsin couldn’t just fire Kulikov,” Klyamkin said. “He had to balance his sacking with an equally meaningful gesture to keep the opposition in check. He chose to sacrifice Chubais--with his consent.”

Chubais, despised by Communists and businessmen alike for his austere economic policies, has long been a key advisor to Yeltsin. He orchestrated the president’s successful reelection campaign in 1996, reorganized his staff, then took over as first deputy prime minister in charge of the economy.

Tainted in a scandal last fall over a $90,000 book advance, Chubais, 42, had been saying publicly lately that he was ready to leave government. After Yeltsin announced the firings, Chubais told reporters that he had given Yeltsin his resignation in early February and only Monday did the president accept it.

Often labeled as a “young reformer” by a press corps eager to see signs of change, Chubais said he expects to receive more job offers than he will be able to sort through. He also expects to continue holding some kind of government post. “You know, I do not know about this ‘young reformer,’ but I am not a very old man yet,” Chubais said. “In this sense, I believe, everything is still ahead of me.”

Chubais said Yeltsin’s inner circle had been working on the dismissal plan for three days and kept it a closely guarded secret until the president could announce it first thing Monday.

Yeltsin’s decision to let Chubais go is likely to improve his relations with the Duma, the lower house of parliament dominated by the president’s critics. Under the constitution, Yeltsin has two weeks to give the Duma his nomination for a new prime minister, and the Duma then has a week to act. If it rejects the president’s nominees three times, the law requires the president to disband the assembly and call new parliamentary elections.

With growing discontent across Russia, analysts said Yeltsin is not eager to push the Duma into a corner and will try to find an acceptable candidate--perhaps even Kiriyenko. “The sacking of Chubais is a clear message to the Duma: ‘Now, in a tit-for-tat measure, I expect you to approve of my new prime minister,’ ” said Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the Independent Institute for Strategic Studies.

The dismissals are likely to take the wind out of opposition protests planned for April and a no-confidence vote scheduled in the Duma. “The president has preempted us,” said Communist Duma Chairman Gennady N. Seleznyov.

Yeltsin has long had a practice of shuffling and reshuffling his Cabinet, dividing up power to keep subordinates off balance and clipping the wings of anyone perceived to be gaining power at his expense. “We know that with our president, many important decisions are taken due to the emotional reaction of the president rather than for political or economic reasons,” Piontkovsky said.

And Yeltsin hinted in his speech to the nation that the wholesale firing was politically motivated, saying: “I think that the members of the Cabinet need to better focus on the solution of concrete economic and social issues. They should be less involved in politics.”

Still, business and political experts agreed that Yeltsin’s move signals his desire to maintain the country’s general economic course of privatizing industry and opening the country to foreign investment. The Russian stock market, which plunged on the initial report of the firings, quickly recovered after Yeltsin spoke. “It is clear that there will be no turn to the left, let alone any concessions to the Communists,” Klyamkin said.

In Washington, Clinton administration specialists on Russia tried to put a brave face on a development they admitted had caught them by surprise, stating that it seemed directed at accelerating the kind of free market reforms encouraged by the United States.

Russia observers outside the government, however, were less certain.

Officially, President Clinton and senior U.S. officials played down the potential impact of Yeltsin’s Cabinet housecleaning. Traveling in Africa, Clinton expressed hope that Russia’s reform policy would remain unchanged, while policy aides sought evidence to bolster that hope.

A senior White House official characterized Yeltsin’s actions as those of a president taking drastic, yet deliberate and considered, action to push reforms ahead. Pointing to Yeltsin’s comments Monday expressing frustration at the slow pace of reform, the official noted that they were similar in tone and content to those Yeltsin had expressed last month during his “state of the nation” speech.

“He laid out the conceptual framework [last month]; now he’s pushing ahead for faster reform,” the official said. “Russia has lost some of its momentum [for reform] and this seems to be a considered approach for a new way forward.”

But Kremlinologists outside government drew less comforting initial conclusions from the move.

“Yeltsin says he wants to accelerate reform, but he must say that when wages or pensions still aren’t being paid,” commented Keith Bush, director of the Russia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The real question is who will be the permanent prime minister. Only that will give us a better idea of what he [Yeltsin] is up to.”

Dimitri Simes, a respected voice on Russian affairs and president of the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, a Washington-based think tank, called Yeltsin’s actions a reminder of the extent to which the country is ruled by a single individual. “This one person isn’t in a situation where he can effectively govern, but he is in a position to make sure everyone else can’t,” Simes said.

Still, he held out a ray of optimism for Russia’s nascent democracy. Quoting Winston Churchill, Simes added, “The Russians are great at overcoming difficulties they create for themselves.”

Times staff writer Tyler Marshall in Washington and Sergei L. Loiko of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.