Prime Time for Primakov

MOSCOW: Boris Yeltsin finally deferred to the Duma, and now foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov, a Soviet veteran and former KGB chief, is set to become Russia's next prime minister. But in the face of economic collapse, the Kremlin's new configuration may prove no more stable than the last one. "Primakov's candidacy is a bid to build an intelligent consensus to face up to Russia's crisis," says TIME Moscow bureau chief Paul Quinn-Judge. "But that crisis may be too big for anyone to handle. Even Primakov's backers seem to be hinting that he won't last more than a few months."

Events are moving quickly in Moscow. Yeltsin nominated Primakov Thursday, shortly after Viktor Chernomyrdin withdrew from the race, and the Duma is expected to approve Primakov's nomination Friday. The former spy is seen as a compromise acceptable to both liberals and Communists. His political (and survival) skills are perhaps best illustrated by the fact that he served as a close aide to both Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. But though he wielded a big stick in foreign affairs -- doing a remarkable job of maintaining Russia's geopolitical influence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union -- he may have drawn the short straw by accepting responsibility for Russia's domestic woes.