PROSECUTOR GENERAL REPLACED.

President Boris Yeltsin has accepted the "voluntary" resignation of acting Prosecutor General Aleksei Ilyushenko, and has replaced him with his first deputy Oleg Gaidanov. Presidential press secretary Sergei Medvedev recalled that Yeltsin had already publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with Ilyushenko’s performance, and stressed that Gaidanov’s appointment is intended to last only until Yeltsin finds a more suitable candidate for the office. (5)

Ilyushenko was criticized from every corner on the Russian political scene. Democratic parties and newspapers attacked him for persecuting Independent TV´s satirical program "Puppets," nationalists and communists criticized him for servile behavior towards the Kremlin, and all political forces deemed him inept in combating organized crime. Among possible successors to Ilyushenko, observers have named the Duma´s security affairs committee chairman Viktor Ilyukhin (communist), justice minister Valentin Kovalev (a communist deputy before joining the executive branch), and the deputy chairman of the Federation Council’s security and defense committee, Pyotr Premyak.

Duma Expels Mavrodi, Questions Parliamentary Immunity.