In 2nd Vote, Yeltsin’s Candidate Is Rejected

Prolonging the government’s paralysis amid a mounting economic crisis, Russia’s lower house of parliament Monday refused for the second time to confirm President Boris N. Yeltsin’s candidate for prime minister.

By a vote of 273 to 138, the Duma rejected the nomination of former Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, whom many legislators hold partly responsible for the country’s economic collapse. The first vote was even more lopsided, however, with only 94 of the 226 needed for confirmation.

The second rejection sets the stage for a final showdown over Yeltsin’s third and last chance to nominate a candidate for the job. If Yeltsin and parliament cannot agree, the president will be required to dissolve the Duma--potentially touching off a constitutional crisis.

“We have not simply approached a dangerous line, we are stepping over it,” Chernomyrdin told the Duma. Raising the specter of riots, he said: “In Indonesia, the whole country was set on fire. Do you want to go that way? Are you calling on us to go there?”

Although Yeltsin had vowed to put forward Chernomyrdin again if he was defeated a second time, the president later held back on the renomination as parliamentary leaders urged him to pick a compromise candidate who could unite Russia’s rival factions.

The unpredictable president has helped compound the country’s economic woes, first by abruptly firing the government of Prime Minister Sergei V. Kiriyenko in mid-August and then by refusing to budge from his choice of Chernomyrdin as Kiriyenko’s replacement.

Since Kiriyenko was axed, the ruble’s rate has fallen from 6.2 to the dollar to about 20 to the dollar--and Russians’ faith in their government has plunged along with it.

Inflation has risen, banks are near collapse, and prices have soared. Anxious shoppers are dumping their rubles and buying out shops’ supplies of cooking oil, flour and other staples. Many urban Russians worry that the instability of the ruble and skyrocketing prices will halt the flow of imported products on which they have come to depend.

On Monday, Central Bank Chairman Sergei K. Dubinin, who has presided over some of the government’s most disastrous fiscal decisions, submitted his resignation. Yeltsin did not immediately accept it, but a spokesman for the president said he believes Dubinin’s decision to step down “should have been made earlier.”

Smelling blood, the Communist-dominated Duma, which has been talking for months about impeaching Yeltsin, neared completion Monday of charges against the president for his role in the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the attack on parliament’s headquarters in 1993 and the war in the secessionist republic of Chechnya.

The 450-member Duma could vote as early as Friday on the charges--and, if it musters the 300 votes needed for impeachment, set up a potential clash between two important constitutional provisions.

Under the constitution, if the Duma votes to start impeachment proceedings, the president is prohibited from dissolving the body. But if legislators reject the nominee for prime minister three times, the constitution requires the president to dissolve the Duma and call new parliamentary elections.

The conflict in the law could lead to a situation in which Yeltsin tries to disband the Duma and rule by decree while legislators led by the Communists maintain that they are still in office and appeal to the public for support.

In 1993, when a similar conflict arose between Yeltsin and the Soviet-era parliament, the president prevailed after he ordered tanks to shell the building where members of parliament and their supporters had barricaded themselves.

This time, however, Yeltsin’s public support is far lower. A recent poll found that two-thirds of the public believes he should resign, and analysts predict the armed forces would not follow him again if he ordered them to fire on the parliament building.

“We will fight Chernomyrdin’s confirmation to the end, and nothing can make us change this decision,” Communist Party leader Gennady A. Zyuganov declared. “There will be no dissolution of the Duma. The people will not allow this to happen. You will see for yourself.”

Yeltsin’s hesitation in renominating Chernomyrdin on Monday night after the Duma defeat suggests he may be looking for a way to avoid a confrontation.

Some Duma leaders have encouraged him to consider an alternative candidate who would be acceptable to a majority of the deputies, such as Moscow Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov, acting Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov or Gov. Yegor S. Stroyev, chairman of the upper house of parliament.

In a modest concession to the Duma, Yeltsin signed a watered-down power-sharing agreement that would give the Duma a greater say in who is selected to serve in the Cabinet of the next government.

But the agreement falls short of an earlier proposal to give legislators the power to confirm the ministers.

Some political analysts said the stakes are so high in the confrontation between Yeltsin and the Communists that neither side is willing to back down.

For Communist leader Zyuganov, who lost to Yeltsin in the 1996 presidential campaign, the battle over control of the government is perhaps his last chance to return to power. Chernomyrdin’s confirmation would be such a defeat for Zyuganov that he would have difficulty maintaining his party post.

But for Yeltsin to give up on Chernomyrdin would signal that he is no longer in charge and has become merely a figurehead president. Depending on who emerged as prime minister, Yeltsin would probably find himself shunted aside and living out his term as president in name only, analysts say.

“Yeltsin is really weak today,” said Leonid Radzikhovsky, a commentator with the newspaper Sevodnya. “Whatever he does is not going to save him from political bankruptcy. If a revolution starts in Russia, there is no doubt that Yeltsin will find himself all alone, fighting the rest of the country.”

Sergei L. Loiko of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.

* SHOPPING SQUEEZE: Despite merchants’ upbeat talk, few Russians appear to be buying items at upscale malls. A6.