GROMOV PARTY OUTLINES "LEFT-OF-CENTER" AGENDA.

Col.-General Boris Gromov and other leaders of the "My Fatherland" party defined themselves as "left-of-center" at the party’s inaugural news conference. Gromov and the number two candidate on the list, economic reformer and perestroika architect Stanislav Shatalin, called for a "socially-oriented" economy, giving priority to the state sector, and placing the market under "tough state controls." The party leaders said that their funding for the electoral campaign was more than adequate. On military and security issues, Gromov called for higher spending for the armed forces but came out against using the army for maintaining internal order, and strongly criticized the political decision to send the army into Chechnya–a job that, he said, belongs exclusively to Interior Ministry forces. The party’s leaders named the Communist Party and former USSR prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov’s "Power to the People" movement as the prospective allies of "My Fatherland" in the new Duma after the elections.

"My Fatherland," which split from the electoral bloc headed by the present Duma’s chairman Ivan Rybkin last week, has officially registered for the December parliamentary elections. Rybkin, who has dismissed the new party’s electoral prospects, is also targeting the "left-of-center" electorate, but is doing so on behalf of the "party of power." (8)

Nuclear Power Plants in Dire Circumstances.