YAVLINSKY LAYS OUT REASONS FOR REFUSING TO JOIN NEW COALITION.

Yavlinsky, for his part, stated categorically that Yabloko would not enter into a coalition with either Gaidar or Chubais. The Yabloko leader said Sunday that the new coalition was an “empty and useless venture,” and that its initiators, who had six years in power to carry out reforms, had only managed to spoil the word “reform” for the Russian people (Russian agencies, November 29). In an interview late Sunday night with NTV, Yavlinsky elaborated on his reasons for refusing to join the coalition. He said that Gaidar and Chubais, while in power, had operated on the mistaken premise that “corruption can serve democracy” (NTV, November 29). Vyacheslav Igrunov, a Yabloko deputy in the State Duma, described the Gaidar-Chubais initiative this way: “These people see that they are disappearing from the political stage, that there is no longer a place for them in our political life. They are grasping at straws. Why should we unite with the architects of a system we have fought against? That would be simply absurd” (RTR, November 29).

Yavlinsky’s unwillingness to unite with Gaidar and Chubais is not surprising. Starting in 1992, he consistently opposed Chubais’ privatization scheme and repeatedly warned that the Gaidar-Chubais reforms were turning Russia into a “quasi-criminal corporatist state.” There is also, reportedly, personal animus between Yavlinsky and the Russia’s Democratic Choice leaders. Yavlinsky’s unwillingness to join the coalition also makes political sense. Yabloko has significant representation in the State Duma, while in the 1995 parliamentary vote, Russia’s Democratic Choice was unable to break to five-percent barrier required for parliamentary representation, receiving fewer votes than the neo-Stalinist Working Russia party.

PRIMAKOV GOVERNMENT CALLS FOR CRACKDOWN ON CRIME.