Threat Of Political Instability In 1999

In Trouble Again

By the spring of 1999, Yeltsin and his entourage found themselves once again
in what they perceived to be a highly threatening situation. It seemed likely
that the forces mobilized by Moscow mayor Yurii Luzhkov (soon to be joined
by former prime minister Primakov) would be able to make major gains
during the parliamentary elections of December 1999 and then prove able to
take the Russian presidency in June of 2000. The specter emerged that
Yeltsin might have to turn over power to an individual (Luzhkov or Primakov)

Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya, p. 208.
Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries, p. 24.
For General Kulikov’s account of what he said and did, see, “Anatolii Kulikov: ‘Ya v
avantyurakh ne uchastvuyu,’” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 23 July 1999.
Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries, pp. 25-26.
who was not his chosen political heir. Such a scenario, as we shall see, was
unacceptable both to Yeltsin and to his close advisors.
In their study Popular Choice and Managed Democracy, Timothy Colton and
Michael McFaul have commented: “In March of 1996 Boris Yeltsin... was on
the verge of canceling the vote... There was no reprise [of this] in 1999 or
2000. Yeltsin and Putin abided by the letter of the Constitution and seem
never to have contemplated doing otherwise.”9 On this point, the authors, as
we shall see, were wide of the mark. They seem, to put the problem in a
nutshell, not to have closely scrutinized developments occurring during the
period March-August 1999, focusing instead on the period extending from
October 1999-March 2000.