Outsider Kiriyenko Well Set For Post

Even as President Boris Yeltsin toyed with Russians about who would make up their new government, observers predicted that his acting prime minister was about to be nominated to the post full-time.


Sergei Kiriyenko, 35, plucked from relative anonymity at the Fuel and Energy Ministry to lead the Cabinet in a reshuffle this week, got even odds from the president Thursday on the possibility of a job extension.


"Maybe yes, maybe no," Yeltsin said of Kiriyenko during a joint news conference with the leaders of Germany and France at the Bor resort complex south of Moscow.


But analysts, Russian newspapers and some lawmakers said Kiriyenko's nomination is all but a done deal. Confirmation by parliament, however, poses a bigger obstacle to his winning the post permanently.


Yeltsin has until April 6 to decide whom to propose to replace Viktor Chernomyrdin, fired with the rest of his Cabinet on Monday.


Despite being characteristically vague, the 67-year-old Kremlin chief defended Kiriyenko against communist lawmakers' criticism that he is too young and unseasoned to steer the Russian government.


"Age is not the factor," Yeltsin said. "The important thing is for the person to have the range of knowledge and skills required to be a minister."


Several Russian newspapers and wire agencies Thursday cited top government sources as saying Yeltsin was on the verge of nominating Kiriyenko. Yeltsin is scheduled to make a rare visit to the White House, Russia's government building, on Friday.


The Russian president rules mostly by decree and any prime minister is likely to carefully obey Yeltsin's orders. But Yeltsin's choice is important because it could reveal the Kremlin game plan on who it will field as its candidate in the next presidential elections, slated for 2000.


Unless the Constitutional Court rules that Yeltsin can run for a third term, Russia's next prime minister is likely to be viewed as Yeltsin's hand-picked successor.


But few believe Kiriyenko, who only came to Moscow seven months ago, is presidential material. Rather, analysts say his nomination would mean that Yeltsin is actually grooming Boris Nemtsov, the first deputy prime minister also dismissed this week.


It was Nemtsov who, shortly after coming into the Kremlin in March 1997, appointed his old Nizhny Novgorod friend Kiriyenko as a deputy in the Fuel and Energy Ministry, which he later came to head.


Nemtsov has often angered lawmakers and is unlikely to be approved by parliament were he nominated to the prime minister's post. Other top candidates include Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and Gregory Yavlinsky, head of the liberal opposition Yabloko faction.


Many observers say Yeltsin fired Chernomyrdin because big businesses close to the Kremlin administration decided the stocky prime minister would never pull in the votes needed to beat strong communist and nationalist candidates.


Analysts also agree that Kiriyenko, precisely because he is not a heavyweight who can upset the delicate balance in Russian politics, suits the Kremlin heavy-hitters -- and Yeltsin himself.


"The candidate for prime minister needs to be politically weak," said a headline to Friday's issue of the Izvestia daily.


"Kiriyenko is not a bad administrator, but he has too little clout to be influential," said Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "Perhaps that's why the various political heavyweights have agreed on him. He won't hurt anyone, and he's certainly not after Yeltsin's seat."


Kiriyenko spent the past two days meeting with various parliament faction leaders, lobbying for their support.


Yavlinsky has so far refused to meet him. Gennady Zyuganov, the Communist Party leader, emerged from a meeting with Kiriyenko to say the Duma would never approve him unless he came up with "realistic" ideas about how to improve Russia's fate.


Many parliamentarians would prefer to see another prime minister in the mold of Chernomyrdin, a former Communist apparatchik who often found a common language with opposition lawmakers.


Duma speaker Gennady Seleznyov, a Communist, Wednesday asked Yeltsin not to nominate Kiriyenko and look for "a more consolidated candidate."


Several fit the type, including Federation Council Chairman Yegor Stroyev and some regional leaders. But most Russian newspapers and several analysts said Thursday that Yeltsin has already ruled out that option.


Alexander Shokhin, parliament faction leader of Chernomyrdin's Our Home Is Russia movement, said Kiriyenko would not be approved on the first try.


Yeltsin gets three attempts to push through his candidate. If the Duma refuses to approve the nominee, the president can disband parliament and call for new elections.


The Kremlin's chief worry over confirmation is that the communists, together with their allies, might be so excited by Chernomyrdin's and the Our Home Is Russia faction's sudden ouster from power that they may be rooting for early parliamentary elections.


Hoping to grab a larger chunk of the electorate while the opponent is seemingly down, the Duma may vote down just about any candidate Yeltsin proposes in order to bring parliamentary elections forward by one year, observers said. The next scheduled Duma election is set for December 1999.