Russian Premier Won’t Run Prime Minister Bows To Yeltsin; Has No Plans To Seek Presidency

Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, in what appeared to be an effort to smooth over tensions with President Boris Yeltsin, said Wednesday he has no plans to run for president next year.

Departing for an official visit to Canada, Chernomyrdin was asked about persistent speculation in recent months that he might run for president or that Yeltsin might force him to quit. Chernomyrdin’s public standing was boosted when he took command of a hostage crisis in southern Russia in June, and he is viewed as a potential successor to Yeltsin.

“I didn’t plan, I don’t plan and I’m not going to,” Chernomyrdin replied. Although his comment did not unequivocally foreclose a bid, it came on the heels of reports of friction in recent weeks between the prime minister and Yeltsin.

At a Sept. 8 news conference, Yeltsin indirectly criticized Chernomyrdin, saying the prime minister’s political bloc, called Our Home Is Russia, had failed to distinguish itself from the others in the current parliamentary campaign and has no chance to dominate the Dec. 17 elections, as Yeltsin had hoped when he urged the bloc’s creation.

Then Yeltsin, who suffered a heart ailment this summer, went on vacation for three weeks to Sochi on the Black Sea and failed to receive Chernomyrdin, although he met with a string of other top government officials. When Yeltsin came back to Moscow, a fresh round of speculation broke out that Yeltsin was planning to ask Chernomyrdin to step down and devote himself to the parliamentary campaign.

Chernomyrdin denied the reports of friction with Yeltsin.

Russian politicians say both Yelt sin and Chernomyrdin, and their respective camps, remain intensely wary of each other. Some believe that Yeltsin, who has not announced whether he will run for re-election, is worried that Chernomyrdin and perhaps other candidates could become even stronger rivals based on the outcome of the parliamentary elections.

In this view, Yeltsin wants to keep Chernomyrdin in the campaign as a centrist force to compete with nationalists and Communists but does not want Chernomyrdin to become a threat for the presidency.