COMMUNISTS THREATEN TO BOYCOTT CRIMEAN PARLIAMENT.

The communist faction in the Crimean parliament has appealed to Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada and the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly “to help restore the basic elements of law and order in the work of the Crimean parliament.” The communists, who won thirty-four of the one hundred seats in the Crimea’s Supreme Soviet in the elections at the end of March, want their leader Leonid Grach to be elected speaker. The other, normally warring, factions have ganged up and nominated former Speaker Anatoly Gritsenko. So far, neither side has been able to muster the fifty-one votes required for victory. The communists claim the voting was rigged and that deputies are being pressured by the government, which the communists say they intend to replace in its entirety. Faced with the communist boycott, parliament has adjourned and will meet again on May 14, when it will make a fresh attempt to choose a leader. (RTR, April 29 and 30; UNIAN, April 30)

CHORNOBYL CHIEF REPLACED.