DOES YELTSIN SEE RUSSIA-BELARUS UNION AS A WAY TO STAY IN THE GAME?

The idea that President Boris Yeltsin may be thinking about the proposed merger of Russia and Belarus as a way of extending his political career is gaining currency. Last fall, Russia’s Constitutional Court ended speculation that Yeltsin could serve another presidential term. Yeltsin’s argument had been that his first election in 1991 was as president of the Soviet Union, and therefore did not count as a term as president of the Russian Federation. The court, however, ruled that Yeltsin was indeed in his second term as president of the country and was thus proscribed by the constitution from running again. In December, Yeltsin met with Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenka in Moscow, after which some Russian government officials said that the two countries would have a single budget and currency by the year 2000. On January 10, Ivan Rybkin, Yeltsin’s personal representative for relations between the counties of the Commonwealth of Independent States, said that Yeltsin would be a “realistic candidate” to head a unified Russian-Belarusan state. Russian news agencies quoted Rybkin as saying that “the experience of people like Boris Yeltsin” was irreplaceable.

In a political prognosis for 1999 published yesterday, Vyacheslav Nikonov, president of the Politika Foundation, wrote that “no political considerations or enemy intrigues will make Yeltsin step down if he does not want to.” Yeltsin is interested in a union with Belarus precisely for this reason, Nikonov wrote, adding that while the Russian head of state “does not stand a chance” of winning a popular election for the post of a Union president, the person to fill the post could end up being chosen by the countries’ respective presidents. According to Nikonov, who was an important member of Yeltsin’s re-election campaign team in 1996, “we can expect a great deal of activity on the Belarusan direction in the coming year” (Trud, January 12).

RUBLE STRENGTHENS SLIGHTLY WHILE RUSSIAN OFFICIALS MULL IMF AID.