Ex-Yeltsin Ally Lebed Wins Governorship

Retired Gen. Alexander I. Lebed, the maverick politician feared by both the Kremlin and the Communist Party, returned to the forefront of national politics Sunday by winning the governorship of one of Russia’s largest provinces.

Reviving a political career that many pundits had declared over, Lebed defeated the incumbent governor of Krasnoyarsk, Valery Zubov, by a ratio of 56% to 39%, with 85% of the vote counted.

“Once again, the people have proved to be much smarter than all the shrewd and crafty politicians,” Lebed, 48, said early this morning in a televised interview. “I am an independent man, and I have been trying to unite under my banner all those people who are sick and tired of living like slaves on their own land.”

The victory of the gravel-voiced general, who fought in Afghanistan and made peace in Chechnya, makes him a strong contender for the presidency when Boris N. Yeltsin’s current term ends in 2000.

Lebed’s popular appeal is based in part on the desire of many Russians to see a strong leader once again take charge of their country and return it to its former glory. But some political analysts warn that he is an ambitious military man whose only real goal is to amass power.

“He has no principles or positions to speak of,” said Igor M. Klyamkin, director of the Institute of Political Analysis. “All he has is the habits of a Soviet general who is inclined to take simple and blunt decisions. He will destabilize the political situation even further. He is a very bad alternative for Russia.”

With his victory as governor of Krasnoyarsk, Lebed automatically wins a seat in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament. Some observers speculate that he could become an even more influential national figure by winning election as the leader of the house.

Lebed placed third in the presidential primary in 1996 behind Yeltsin and Communist Party leader Gennady A. Zyuganov, then formed an alliance with Yeltsin that helped the president win reelection. He served as the national security advisor in Yeltsin’s new administration. But after he forged the 1996 agreement that ended the war in the separatist republic of Chechnya, Yeltsin dismissed him from his high-profile post.

Exiled from the Kremlin, Lebed bided his time, built a political organization and resurfaced in Siberia to campaign in Krasnoyarsk--a territory more than three times the size of Texas.

Rich in mineral resources, the province covers nearly one-seventh of Russia’s landmass and virtually splits the country in two, stretching from the Arctic Ocean almost to the Mongolian border. Its 3 million people live mainly in grimy, depressed, Soviet-era industrial cities such as Norilsk, the nickel-producing city above the Arctic Circle.

Zubov, 45, an economist, characterized Lebed in the campaign as an outsider who didn’t understand the region’s problems and wanted the governor’s job only as a steppingstone to the presidency. In fact, Lebed is not a legal resident of the region and could not vote in Sunday’s election.

But the retired general promised to tackle the economic problems of the region and said he would not run for president until he had succeeded in “lifting up” the territory. His pledge proved enough for most voters; in Norilsk, he won 85% of the votes.

In recent weeks, the campaign had taken on the appearance of an early presidential contest. Potential candidates, such as Zyuganov and Moscow Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov, traveled to the territory to campaign for Zubov.

Lebed had the backing of tycoon Boris A. Berezovsky, prompting his foes to charge that he planned to sell off the territory’s natural resources to the robber barons who already control much of Russia’s economy.

“Alexander Lebed’s coming to this territory may bring a redivision of property and land and the giving away of Siberian minerals,” Zubov said, warning that a Lebed victory could lead to “civil war.”

Lebed dismissed his opponent as “hysterical.”