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TIME International, February 12, 1996 Volume 147, No. 7

Russia, Maverick In The Duma The Communists Won Big In Russia'S Parliamentary Elections, But Some Reformers Also Plan To Shine

John Kohan, Moscow

For Yuri Shchekochikhin, 45, The inaugural session of the new State Duma is an exercise in deja vu. Strolling the labyrinthine corridors of the old State Planning Committee building near Red Square where the lower chamber of the Russian legislature has been housed since May 1994, the newly elected Shchekochikhin recognizes many faces from the era of Mikhail Gorbachev. Back then he was one of 2,250 parliamentarians in the old Congress of the People's Deputies. Former Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, now leader of a small pro-Communist bloc of Deputies, comes up to pump his hand and say that it's been a long time no see. Shchekochikhin is underwhelmed. "Ryzhkov never did see much of me in the old days when he was seated at the main tribunal in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses," he confesses.

Disillusioned by the failure of Gorbachev's reforms, Shchekochikhin swore he would never run for office again after the Congress was disbanded in December 1991. For the past four years, he has mostly been writing columns about the Russian Mafia for the Moscow weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta. But when the reformist Yabloko movement of economist Grigori Yavlinsky asked the popular journalist to head its list of Moscow candidates in December's Duma elections, Shchekochikhin succumbed to the lure of the political spotlight. "I felt I was missing something," he explains. "As a journalist, I'm tired of writing, speaking and shouting about issues, when I know that public opinion counts for nothing in Russia today. Maybe I can do something in the Duma."

The mind-numbing debates over procedural points remind him of the Soviet-era Congress, he says, though the Duma has fewer, and more professional, Deputies. But now there are the tirades of ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, which have taken some getting used to. Shchekochikhin was appalled, for example, to hear Zhirinovsky rant about American forces using Hungary not as a staging post for Bosnia but as a launching pad to seize the Black Sea ports of Odessa and Novorossiisk. Then he noticed that no one else was paying any attention. Says Shchekochikhin: "Veteran Deputies from the last Duma seem to block Zhirinovsky out like disturbing background noise."

The rookie Deputy's first days in parliament have been a grueling round of debates, votes and party-faction meetings. The 46 Yabloko Deputies make up the fourth largest group in parliament, and their support was keenly sought by the dominant Communist Party when the "Big Red Parliamentary Machine" came up 10 votes short in its first attempt to elect a Communist to the post of Speaker. Shchekochikhin and his colleagues were under strong pressure from both Zhirinovsky and the Our Home Is Russia faction of Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin to reject the Communists' blandishments. Yabloko held the line against the Communists on a second ballot, but they won the third time around. Boris Yeltsin furiously lashed out at Yabloko for seeking a compromise with the Communists. Says Shchekochikhin: "The President got it wrong. They won without us."

Shchekochikhin nonetheless believes he can contribute to positive change. In the scramble for places on 28 parliamentary committees, he has submitted his name for a seat on the State Duma Committee on Security, where he hopes to follow up on his reportorial interests by investigating the international connections of organized crime in Russia and drafting a code of ethics for the Security Services. He admits that a journalist on a security committee is a bit like a fox in a henhouse. "Of course, there will be many things I cannot talk about," he says. "But other issues should be made public. The heads of our Security Services need to account for why the struggle against terrorism is going so badly."

As always in Russia, bureaucratic headaches have troubled the new Deputies. Until committee assignments were sorted out, Shchekochikhin had to work without an office and hung out in the reception room of Yabloko's Vladimir Lukin, the veteran chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, using his stationery to answer letters. Shchekochikhin is still waiting for his official ID and a Deputy's lapel badge shaped like the Russian tricolor flag. "The first batch they made apparently came out with the wrong color of blue," Shchekochikhin explains. "So, many of the Deputies are wearing badges from the old Supreme Soviet and the parliament of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic."

Given the numerical advantage of the Communist bloc in the new parliament, Shchekochikhin says he is prepared for more defeats than victories. Looking ahead to six turbulent months before Russia's presidential election, he feels haunted by the history of Russia's faltering democracy, especially the 1993 showdown between Yeltsin and the rebellious legislature. "You can't help feeling that something is going to happen," says Shchekochikhin. "You have this sense that the parliament might not serve out its full term--and it may end again with political games and tanks in the streets. This time, though, I will be witnessing everything from the inside." Once a journalist, always a journalist.

 

TIME International, February 12, 1996 Volume 147, No. 7

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