Yeltsin Fires Russian Government
Boris Yeltsin fired Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko and the rest of his government on Sunday and said he was reappointing former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.
The surprise announcement came as Kiriyenko and the government were struggling to overcome one of Russia's worst economic crises since the Soviet collapse.
The Russian president had fired Chernomyrdin and appointed the 35-year-old Kiriyenko in March, saying Russia needed new ideas and fresh leadership. Kiriyenko had barely been approved by parliament when Russia's economy went into a tailspin, a victim of plunging world oil prices and the Asian economic crisis.
Since then, the young prime minister had been waging a losing battle to shore up the economy, defend the national currency and push reform measures through a hostile parliament dominated by communists and their allies.
Chernomyrdin, a Soviet-style bureaucrat who once headed the national gas monopoly, Gazprom, has busied himself since being fired by laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign in 2000.
Few political analysts think Chernomyrdin -- a relatively bland and conservative figure strongly associated with an unpopular administration -- could win, although he could probably count on some support from the business and banking establishment.
Kiriyenko had been busy holding meetings Sunday to work out measures to save Russia's banking system from default.
Yeltsin delivered the news in a terse announcement from his press service. He did not give any reason for the shift, but he has been under increasing pressure from parliament to replace the government.
The lower house of parliament, the State Duma, called Friday for Yeltsin's resignation, and all factions in parliament had also demanded that Kiriyenko step down or be fired.
"We can't afford the luxury of being a popular government," Kiriyenko told the Duma on Friday as he outlined the government's new austerity package. His comments drew a chorus of boos and jeers.
Written by Mitchell Landsberg