Yeltsin's Early Challengers

...His expert use of the medium is what enabled the party to take practically a fourth of the seats in the Duma...

...His outrageous statements have included a promise that when—not if—he is elected, he will establish a dictatorship and order the arrest or execution of opponents to restoring a greater Russian empire...

...A little over 40 per cent were undecided, with the remainder naming a host of minor personalities...

...He has done nothing to groom an heir, though, and seems to have forgotten about the one-term pledge...

...And it left him facing a legislature no less conservative than the one he had dissolved...

...As the polls do clearly indicate, however, to stay at the helm he will have to reclaim the commanding leadership position he assumed back in August '91...

...Those with an eye on Yeltsin's job are therefore vying for television time in their efforts to develop constituencies among the country's roughly 105 million voters, the vast majority of whom get their information from the tube...

...But the newspaper Izvestia probably had it right: "If Chernomyrdin manages to lead the country out of its crisis, he will have to be the leading candidate for president...

...His appeal appears to be growing, thanks to a perception of him as an able politician with a firm grasp of the complexities of economic policy...

...Thirty per cent of the people polled said "Yes...

...Last September, for example, a national public opinion survey posed the following question: "Do you believe it is time for President Yeltsin to step down...

...Early in his tenure he said he intended to be a one-term president who would train a new generation of politicians...

...This was demonstrated in December's parliamentary elections by the ultranationalist Vladimir V Zhirinovsky, leader of the deceptively named Liberal Democratic Party...

...Obviously aware that it would be bad politics for him to show his hand at this point, Chernomyrdin insists he has no higher ambitions...

...Of the four who have declared themselves, Zhirinovsky, 48, is making the loudest noise...

...Four men in their 40s have already thrown their hats into the ring, and political analysts point to a fifth, 56-year-old Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, who they believe has achieved a standing equal to Yeltsin's...

...The man who had exhorted them to resist the coup while standing atop a tank outside the White House, Russia's Parliament building, symbolized their hopes for a free and prosperous society...

...Still, it seems safe to say that if not him, the next Russian president will be a younger man who is more of a technocrat than a revolutionary, yet who is broadly committed to the spirit of present domestic and international policies—and burdened by the seemingly endless task of establishing a capitalist system in Russia under democratic rule of law...

...Another encouraging factor for would-be successors is the role television has come to play in the country's politics...

...A tall order...

...It would be foolhardy at this initial stage of what will be a long race to speak assuredly about its outcome...

...Furthermore, the "new Russia" Yeltsin promised has turned out to be poor and corrupt...

...Other candidates are likely to surface...

...Yeltsin could regain his stature and win handily after all...

...But then they were caught up in the euphoria inspired by the collapse of the Soviet Communist state...

...Had you asked that question of almost any Russian a little over two years ago, the answer would have been an unhesi-tant "No one...

...Since his arbitrary decision last September to scrap the Constitution and sack the Parliament inherited from the old regime, his image as the protector of democracy has been severely damaged...

...It also has depressed the President's popularity ratings, confirming the argument of challengers that his authority is ebbing...

...His spokesman, Vyacheslav Kostikov, has been coyly suggesting that his boss would never leave the ship of state's steering wheel to anyone but a competent successor...

...In the chaotic aftermath of the aborted August 1991 Right-wing attempt to overthrow Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, most people here could not conceive of anyone other than the courageous Yeltsin taking the helm...

...Ask the same question now and you will hear half a dozen different names, accompanied by explanations that reveal how much the Russian political scene has changed—and how far yesterday's hero has fallen...

...When the same question was asked five months later, in February, 46 per cent said "Yes...

...As a result, Russians currently have a familiarity with many more politicians than they did three years ago...

...When their preference for president is sought, the incumbent emerges with only a slight edge that is blunted by a hefty undecided bloc...

...Western governments may not be sufficiently impressed by such numbers to stop basing their Russian policies on the belief that Yeltsin will be re-elected for four more years (the term under the new Constitution), yet analysts here have begun speculating about whether he will even make it to the '96 contest...

...At 63 Yeltsin, who has survived two coups and a stream of challenges to his authority, is on the defensive...

...The breakdown of a second poll confined to 1,860 Muscovites, who are generally considered liberal and supporters of the President, was: Yeltsin 27 per cent, Yavlinsky 21 per cent, former economics adviser Yegor T. Gaidar 14 per cent, and Zhirinovsky 11 per cent, with most of the rest undecided...

...Given Russia's volatility, the picture may be quite different by '96...

...A sampling of 400 of them nevertheless rated Skokov fourth —after Yeltsin, Yavlinsky and Chernomyrdin—as the man most able to lead the country out of its economic mess...

...In a recent nationwide Interfax News Agency/Public Opinion Fund poll of 1,600 Russians, 18 per cent said they would vote for Yeltsin, 13 per cent for Zhirinovsky, and 9 per cent for the young reform economist Grigory A. Yavlinsky...

...Indeed, his vulnerability has prompted potential opponents to begin gearing up their campaigns, although the presidential election is still two years away...

...Yeltsin, in fact, has yet to say whether he will seek re-election...

...All this has stirred not only disillusionment among the citizenry, but embarrassment at being seen by the West as a poverty-stricken, humiliated nation...

...The least widely known of the announced hopefuls is Yuri V Skokov, 45, present chairman of the Federation of Manufacturers and ex-head of Yeltsin's Security Council...

...The 500-day economic plan he authored—rejected by Yeltsin—has been doing well as a pilot project in Nizhny Novgorod (previously Gorky...

...Then there is Yavlinsky, 42, a radical reformer under Gorbachev...

...The liberal daily Neza-visimaya Gazeta has observed that his efforts to halt the precipitous slide of Russian industry have made him popular with labor leaders, enterprise managers and business people...

...Released from prison under a parliamentary amnesty, Rutskoi draws support from the military, political conservatives and nationalists, plus the millions of pensioners and state employees hit hard by inflation who feel themselves dispossessed and disregarded...

...The move led to an armed uprising he had the Army put down in early October, at a cost of at least 142 lives (the official figure), raising fears that his political roots were showing...

...So if not Yeltsin, who...

...In addition, he will have to finally scotch the rumors that have been dogging him about his health and libation...

...Its most distinctive features have been a steady drop in living standards, soaring unemployment and flourishing organized crime...

...His appeal has been dwindling lately, but he remains the favorite of extreme nationalists and anti-Semites...

...Mark Hopkins, a longtime contributor to The New Leader, is chief of Voice of America's news bureau in Moscow...

...Handsome, well-dressed, articulate, Yavlinsky also is more effective on television than any of the other early Yeltsin challengers...

...Many Russians say they like Yavlinsky because he represents a new generation, untram-meled by strong ties to the Communist past and particularly suited to heading a modernizing society...

...A second member of the quartet is Aleksandr V Rutskoi, 46, the Afghan War hero and former vice-president who was a leader of the October coup against Yeltsin...

...Today, those hopes lie largely in tatters and it is no longer certain that Yeltsin could capture a majority of the vote, as he did when he was elected President of the Russian Republic in June '91, or that he could regain the public confidence expressed in him as recently as the April '93 referendum...