Duma Bows to Yeltsin, OKs Choice for Premier

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin scored a major political victory Wednesday as parliament’s lower house voted overwhelmingly to confirm his nominee, longtime loyalist Sergei V. Stepashin, as prime minister.

By a vote of 301 to 55, the Duma temporarily set aside its rivalries and approved the three-star general and doctor of law who pledged to tackle Russia’s economic problems aggressively and restore the country’s greatness.

“Today we need a new, more determined and vigorous approach,” he told the Duma before the vote. “There is no more place for halfhearted measures and compromise. . . . We are prepared to use the most resolute measures of government influence and tough financial regulation.”

The confirmation of Stepashin, 47, brought to a close a tumultuous political week in which Yeltsin angered Duma deputies by ousting popular Prime Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov, then narrowly avoided impeachment at the hands of the same lawmakers.

By acquiescing to Yeltsin’s choice, the Duma deputies cast their votes for self-preservation, political stability and a prime minister who can guide the country toward parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled during the next 14 months.

“No one pins big hopes on Stepashin,” said Alexei G. Arbatov, a pro-market deputy who voted for the new prime minister. “Everybody wants him to prevent the further destruction of the economy and conduct fair and honest elections so that the new parliament and the new president can be elected legally. He is viewed as a guardsman on temporary watch at the helm.”

The baby-faced Stepashin, who has held the posts of interior minister, justice minister and director of the Federal Security Service, becomes Yeltsin’s fourth prime minister in 14 months.

His experience leading three of Russia’s top five military and security agencies prompted fears that he might use force to retain power for Yeltsin. But he assured deputies that would not be the case.

“They claim that ‘Look, a general has come, a strong hand, Russia is on the eve of a dictatorship,’ ” he said. “They even compare me with [ex-Chilean dictator Augusto] Pinochet. No, I am not Gen. Pinochet. I am Stepashin. I am convinced that the road of force and noneconomic decisions is not acceptable to our country.”

Stepashin’s confirmation despite widespread anger over the firing of Primakov demonstrates how powerful Yeltsin remains despite the president’s erratic behavior and the frequent illnesses that have kept him sidelined much of his second term.

If the deputies had rejected Yeltsin’s nominee for prime minister three times, the constitution drafted under Yeltsin’s direction in 1993 would have required him to dissolve the Duma and call early elections. The deputies would have lost all their perks, including offices, staff and free air travel that they are counting on to help them win in elections scheduled for December.

“The result of today’s vote is not surprising at all,” said Deputy Vladimir N. Lysenko. “The Duma is already thinking about the next elections.”

Some deputies predicted that Stepashin might not survive until Yeltsin’s term expires in July 2000, in part because the unpredictable president may soon become as jealous of his new prime minister as he was of Primakov, who lasted eight months.

Although Yeltsin said he fired Primakov because the economy was not improving fast enough, it is widely believed that the president ousted him because the prime minister had grown too powerful and posed a challenge to Yeltsin’s rule.

“The new government could survive for two months, or half a year or even a whole year,” said Vladimir A. Ryzhkov, who heads the Our Home Is Russia faction that is nominally Yeltsin’s strongest backer in parliament. “There is no telling. God knows how relations between the president and Sergei Vadimovich [Stepashin] will change in two or three months. Everything will depend on the likes and dislikes of the head of state.”

Long allied with Yeltsin, Stepashin was one of the chief architects of the disastrous war in Chechnya and resigned in disgrace in 1995 after bungling a hostage crisis that led to more than 100 deaths. Nevertheless, he returned to government not long after and resumed his climb through the ranks.

Stepashin took pains to emphasize even to the Duma his loyalty to Yeltsin, saying before the vote: “Regardless of any political circumstances, I will never act against the president or betray him. This is unworthy of any person, the more so an officer.”

Immediately after the vote, Stepashin went to the Kremlin and met with Yeltsin, who gave his new prime minister “a real tight hug,” said Dmitri D. Yakushkin, a presidential spokesman. During their meeting, Stepashin told Yeltsin that he “was and is the president’s man,” Yakushkin said.

His unswerving loyalty to the president aside, many Duma deputies regard Stepashin as reasonable and intelligent. He holds an advanced degree in history as well as a doctorate in law, and rose within the Interior Ministry to the rank of colonel general. Many Duma deputies voted for Stepashin out of fear that they would get someone worse if they rejected him.

“Our vote for Stepashin doesn’t at all mean that we support Stepashin’s personality or support Yeltsin’s choice,” said Communist Deputy Svetlana Y. Savitskaya, a former cosmonaut. “The way we see it, Stepashin happens to be the most acceptable candidate that Yeltsin could have imposed on us.”

In outlining his economic policy, Stepashin said he would seek quick Duma approval of banking legislation and other fiscal measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund in exchange for a promised $4.5-billion loan.

Corruption, he said, is at the heart of Russia’s economic problems, and decriminalizing the economy will be one of his top priorities. Millions of Russians are employed in a criminal sector that is “almost more effective and dynamic” than the legal economy, he said.

“My experience in law enforcement bodies puts me in a position to assert that herein lies the main tangle of problems that paralyze all the spheres of life in modern Russia,” he said.

Stepashin said he will seek to bring back billions of dollars that were taken abroad illegally by Russian businesspeople and try to prevent the theft of foreign loans meant to help the economy recover.

“It is necessary to correct the situation when loans obtained with great effort are used ineffectively and often are brazenly stolen,” he said.

If nothing else, Stepashin showed this week that he has a sense of humor. At the end of a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, he repeated a joke highlighting his police background:

“Those of you who voted for Stepashin,” he said, “may put your hands down and step away from the wall.”

Sergei L. Loiko and Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.