Pro-reform parties should wait until the next parliamentary elections before agreeing on a common candidate for the presidency in 1996, Yegor Gaidar, the leader of the pro-Yeltsin Democratic Russia's Choice party, said Tuesday.


Gaidar told a press conference that "a whole historical epoch" lay between now and the next presidential poll and that there was no point in agreeing who his party should back at the moment.


"The most sensible time to decide this question will be after we win the parliamentary elections," he said.


The next parliamentary elections are due in December 1995, six months ahead of the scheduled presidential elections in June 1996. The leaders of the so-called democratic camp are divided on whether to back President Boris Yeltsin should he run again and whom to support if he does not.


Gaidar's party has so far said it will support Yeltsin if he does run and has no obvious candidate to succeed him.


His comments are unlikely to satisfy other reformist leaders such as former finance minister Boris Fyodorov or economist Grigory Yavlinsky. Yavlinsky has made it clear he intends to run anyway, whatever the president decides.


Yavlinsky said Monday that "statements that Democratic Russia's Choice does not see an alternative to Boris Yeltsin's candidacy in the next presidential elections cannot serve as a basis for an alliance of democratic forces."


Opposition hopefuls like Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Alexander Rutskoi, however, have already hit the provincial campaign trail and Yavlinsky has also toured the provinces to raise his profile.


Gaidar said he hoped his party and Yavlinsky's Yabloko group could agree on common candidates in single-member constituencies in the next parliamentary polls, something pro-reform blocs signally failed to do in December 1993.


He repeated his prediction that parliamentary polls might happen as early as next spring if the Duma and the president clashed head on over the budget.


The draft 1995 budget won Gaidar's approval.