Impeaching Boris?

The Duma and Yeltsin vie to pull the plug on each other

By Tony Karon Tuesday, Sept. 08, 1998
    • Can the specter of impeachment force Boris to nominate a new prime minister? Although it's still possible that the Duma would confirm Viktor Chernomyrdin rather than face dissolution, there is another option and it involves the i -word. Under Russia's constitution, Yeltsin can't dissolve the legislature if impeachment proceedings have been launched against him. The Duma may be even closer to impeaching Yeltsin than Congress is to impeaching Clinton; a Duma commission is already at work on formulating charges.

    Yeltsin's advisers may also be pushing him to accept a compromise candidate on the grounds that the economy won't bear further political paralysis; gas prices jumped by between 15 percent and 40 percent Tuesday, and the ruble traded officially at 18.90 to the dollar -- a 300 percent decline in just three weeks. Dropping Viktor Chernomyrdin and accepting a compromise candidate for prime minister is the rational course of action, says TIME Moscow correspondent Andrew Meier, who like everybody in TIME's Moscow bureau is scrambling to cope with the collapse of its local bank. "The problem is there's never any certainty that Yeltsin will do what is rational."