Lebed launches political '3rd force'

By David Hearst

MOSCOW: Alexander Lebed, who has emerged as the most powerful opposition figure in Russia, has announced that he is forming a political "third force" to attract millions of voters who, he claims, are disappointed with Communism and alienated by the self-styled democrats.

Striking out at both President Yeltsin and the Communist leader, Gennady Zyuganov, Gen. Lebed declared in a newspaper interview that the main danger facing Russia was an inefficient government run by people prepared to make extreme decisions in their own interests.

The former security chief made clear that his break with Yeltsin was final by devoting a large part of the interview to the president's health.

"I know for certain that Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin is a very sick man," Lebed said.

Quoting his own highly placed sources, Lebed hinted that Yeltsin was ignoring the advice of doctors by launching himself again into the political fray. He said that physically Yeltsin was fit only for retirement and to play the role of a fond grandfather.

"The president has spent half a year having an operation and recuperating, but someone was running the country on his behalf, and did it so badly that Russia is in crisis now. This crisis may reach its peak in the spring," he said.

The new party, called the Russian Popular Republican Party, would avoid the extremes of both left and right, he said, and had substantial financial backing. Gen. Lebed, although popular, knows that he lacks a pan-Russian organization.

His announcement was directed at the Communist leader Zyuganov's supporters as well as those fed up with Kremlin intrigues. Asked who would support him, he gave a diverse list of potential supporters.

"We will seek the support of small and medium-sized business, big private industry, the armed forces, the military-industrial complex, the intelligentsia," he told a news conference in the village of Golitsyno, outside Moscow.

While parties in Russian politics are ten a penny - Gen. Lebed has founded two previous movements - his strident attack is a threat to Yeltsin. Gen. Lebed has thrown political caution to the wind, sensing that the end of Yeltsin's second term as president may be fast approaching.

He is now using the same language about Yeltsin, his former political partner, as did Yeltsin's disgraced former bodyguard, Gen. Alexander Korzhakov.

-- The Guardian