Shumeiko Emerging as Yeltsin Heir Apparent

When Vladimir Shumeiko, speaker of the upper house of parliament, denounced the 1994 draft budget Thursday, he laid down a marker that he is a power-broker to be reckoned with and a man well-placed to step into President Boris Yeltsin's shoes.Shumeiko told journalists that he would urge the Federation Council, the powerful forum of Russia's 89 regions, to vote down the tight-spending budget passed a day earlier by the lower house, the State Duma, on the grounds that it penalized the army.Shumeiko, 49, has amassed a formidable array of responsibilities of late, which give him influence over the military, nationalities policy and foreign affairs in addition to his job as chairman of a chamber of regional barons. This web of powers has led some commentators to see him as the emerging heir apparent to Yeltsin."Shumeiko has been appointed the main potential crown prince," said Sergei Markov, a politics professor at Moscow University. "He is being pushed forward as Yeltsin's heir." Markov said that Shumeiko, who was elected to parliament in December from the highly militarized region of Kaliningrad, has been forging strong links with the military ever since."He is aspiring to the role of lobbyist for the military industrial complex," Markov said.Shumeiko kept up that role on Thursday, saying that the upper house would propose new military spending. In this stance, Shumeiko has common cause with Yeltsin, who also spoke up for more spending for the military recently.Yeltsin gave Shumeiko a larger say in defense policy this week when he appointed him to his main consultative body on security and defense, the Security Council.Like Yeltsin, Shumeiko's background is in regional politics. He began his career as a metalworker and rose to become a factory director in the southern city of Krasnodar. He came to Moscow only in 1990, when he was elected to the Russian Supreme Soviet. In 1992, former acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar appointed Shumeiko to his cabinet in an effort to bolster support among industrialists, but Shumeiko soon became a supporter of Gaidar's tight spending policies. In his new post, Shumeiko has once again modified his profile."He comes from the Soviet director class. His latest incarnation is going back to his roots," a Western diplomat commented. He said Shumeiko was a close Yeltsin ally who had "no clear ideological profile," only a "strong vested interest in a successful Yeltsin presidency." In recent months Shumeiko has been adding a new set of responsibilities to his regional portfolio as speaker of the upper house. He represented Russia at the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa and led a Russian delegation on a five-nation tour of Latin America.He has presided over peace talks on the disputed enclave of Nagorno Karabakh and on Wednesday he chaired a conference in St. Petersburg of CIS parliaments.He has also staked a claim to shaping Russian nationalities policy, winning a dispute with former Nationalities Minister Sergei Shakhrai over Moscow's policy on the breakaway republic of Chechnya. Last month Shakhrai was sacked and replaced with Shumeiko's old acquaintance, Nikolai Yegorov, the former head of the Krasnodar region. Shumeiko's impressive resume will stand him in good stead if Yeltsin, his mentor, decides to step down in 1996, commentators say."If Yeltsin does not run for a second term, Shumeiko's candidature in the role of 'heir' will absolutely fit the bill," Commersant Daily commented on Wednesday.The Western diplomat agreed that if Yeltsin stepped aside Shumeiko would be a strong contender.Shumeiko's star has risen in 1994 after a year of troubles which threatened to end his political career. Last April Alexander Rutskoi, then the vice president, accused Shumeiko, then the first deputy prime minister, of embezzling $14.5 million of state funds. Criminal charges were opened against him which were finally dropped in September after Yeltsin's dissolution of the Supreme Soviet.