LEBED AND SKOKOV RIVALS FOR PRESIDENCY?

The simmering conflict between retired Lt. General Aleksandr Lebed, presidential candidate of the Congress of Russian Communities (KRO), and that organization’s official leader, Yury Skokov, burst into the open this week when the leaders of KRO’s Krasnodar and Rostov branches, Konstantin Zatulin and Viktor Petrov, appealed publicly to them to settle their differences "in a manly way." The dispute is believed to be fueled by the ambition of both men to stand as KRO’s presidential candidate: Skokov believes himself to be the brains of the organization, but Lebed has the crowd appeal. Meanwhile, Lebed has joined the Popular Rule faction in the Duma headed by former Soviet prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov. Popular Rule is a nationalist group with close ties to the Zyuganov’s Communist Party of the Russian Federation. (10)

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