Slaying of Russia Lawmaker Stuns Friends, Foes

A torrent of anger and shock washed across Russia on Saturday after the assassination of one of the country’s few untarnished democrats--Galina V. Starovoitova, a champion of human rights and individual freedoms admired even by those who endured her stinging criticisms.

President Boris N. Yeltsin, one of the politicians she frequently needled, called the slaying an ill omen for Russian democracy.

“The shots that cut short the life of Galina Vasilyevna wounded every Russian who cherishes democratic values,” Yeltsin said in a statement released by the Kremlin. “A brazen challenge has been thrown at our entire society.”

Others went further, accusing those behind the assassination of seeking to destabilize Russia at a sensitive time: The president is ailing, the economy is crumbling, and talk is growing of early elections.

“A mortal danger is hanging over democracy in Russia,” said former acting Prime Minister Yegor T. Gaidar, who was an ally of Starovoitova. “Russia faces a new round of elections tainted by the cynical murder of its brightest legislator. They want to tell us: We will shoot your leaders so the people will vote for whomever we pick.”

Starovoitova, 52, an independent parliament deputy who helped bring Yeltsin to power in the early ‘90s only to become one of his sharpest critics, was gunned down by two masked figures as she climbed the stairs to her St. Petersburg apartment late Friday. An aide was severely wounded.

Law enforcement officials refused to speculate on motives for the killing but said they had little doubt that it was a professional hit. Two guns were found at the scene: an assault rifle used by U.S. special forces and rarely found in Russia, and a 9-millimeter Beretta pistol.

Television news anchors, government officials and her supporters quickly labeled the assassination an act of political terror against a fearless critic of hard-line forces, especially Communists, ultranationalists and fascists.

Starovoitova’s death dominated airwaves from morning to night. Impromptu vigils formed outside parliament’s lower house, the Duma, and in front of St. Petersburg’s ornate Winter Palace. Mourners carried candles, flags adorned with black ribbons and grainy photos of the feisty democrat.

“This is a crime against me, a crime against you, a crime against every person who stands in this square,” poet Viktor Kivrulin told the crowd in St. Petersburg. “We are united in pain, which is more important than politics.”

Communist Party leader Gennady A. Zyuganov, her political archfoe, called for a minute of silence during a political congress in Moscow, and he demanded a strong government response.

“Not a single crime that has shaken the public in recent years has been solved,” he complained. “We demand emergency measures to bring order to the country.”

Colleagues said Starovoitova had recently received threats but decided to ignore them, saying she had been threatened before.

“She always said contract killings were connected to money, and because she has no business dealings, she said she had nothing to fear,” said Pyotr Kucherenko, a Starovoitova aide.

She was Russia’s sixth Duma member and the only female politician to be killed while in office. Most contract killings in Russia remain unsolved.

Trained as an ethnographer, Starovoitova became active in the human rights movement in the late 1980s and won a seat in the first open elections to the Soviet-era Congress of People’s Deputies.

In 1991, she helped Yeltsin rally forces to block a Communist coup, and, after being considered for the job of defense minister, joined his government as his advisor on ethnic affairs.

But her ties to Yeltsin frayed quickly. She was fired the following year after she complained openly that the president had surrounded himself with ill-informed aides and was compromising his democratic principles.

“We must understand that concessions to the opposition only whets its appetite,” she said afterward.

Starovoitova’s criticism of Yeltsin intensified over his decision to send troops into Chechnya in 1994, and she remained a consistent critic. She was elected to the Duma in 1995 from St. Petersburg and tried to run for president in 1996 but was dropped from the ballot for technical reasons. She was contemplating another try in 2000.

In recent weeks she had become more deeply involved in local politics in her base of St. Petersburg, which has been troubled by a wave of contract killings of businessmen and politicians.

Three prominent figures have been killed in the last two months, including a close associate of Duma Speaker Gennady N. Seleznyov.

Boris Y. Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister fired earlier this year, said the crime shows that “first of all, the dregs of society have been victorious in Russia for quite a few years and, second, that St. Petersburg, Russia’s second capital, has become a criminal city.”

Starovoitova’s had a rare ability to inspire respect even from her enemies. As a result, the question at the center of the public outcry was: Who would hate her enough to kill her?

Many suggested that the murder might be tied to upcoming elections in the St. Petersburg region.

Starovoitova had formed a coalition called Northern Capital to push the candidacy of liberals running in Dec. 6 elections for the regional legislature. She was expected to be a candidate herself for the post of governor shortly thereafter.

Others tied her death to her recent denunciations of Communists and nationalists in the Duma whom she accused of fomenting anti-Semitism.

She was also said to have collected compromising information about the financial dealings of various political leaders, including Seleznyov, that were to be released in the coming week.