ZYUGANOV FEARS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS MAY BE CANCELED…

Interviewed by NTV on Friday evening, Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov said he was confident he would be elected president in June as long as the elections go ahead. But he said he was worried that Yeltsin might try to find a way to cancel the election. This might be done, Zyuganov suggested, if a state of emergency was declared in Chechnya or if unrest was provoked in other parts of Russia, following which a state of emergency might be declared throughout the country. With this possibility in mind, Zyuganov said, the Communist Party faction in the Duma was preparing a "law on the transfer of power" which would make it impossible for the president to try such a tactic. Zyuganov said his party was engaged in negotiations with like-minded presidential candidates, including retired Lt. General Aleksandr Lebed, over the creation of a coalition "government of popular trust." Intense negotiations were also going on, he said, with Grigory Yavlinsky’s Yabloko. Zyuganov added that he favored the idea of reviving the post of vice president (abolished by Yeltsin in 1993) and that Kemerovo leader Aman Tuleev was his preferred candidate for the post. (1)

…While Yeltsin Fears Communist Victory.