COMMUNISTS HOLD OFF ON CHOICE OF PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE.

The Communist party does not intend to pick its presidential candidate at its Central Committee meeting January 10-11, announced Gennady Seleznev. (10) Instead, the party will concentrate on deciding with which parties and blocs to cooperate in selecting a single joint candidate to represent the communist and patriotic movements. Talks will likely be held with the Agrarian Party and the "Power to the People!" movement led by former Soviet prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, said Seleznev. The KPRF spokesman was contemptuous of last week’s invitation to the communists by the Congress of Russian Communities (KRO), who invited the CPRF to join forces behind KRO presidential candidate retired Lt. General Aleksandr Lebed. Rushing to declare one’s candidacy without consulting other parties "does not look serious," Seleznev said. The Communist party cannot be unaware, however, that Lebed has the charisma conspicuously lacking in their own leader, Gennady Zyuganov.

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