Yeltsin to Sworn in for Second Russia Term 🇷🇺

(8 Aug 1996) Eng/Russ/Nat

A victorious Boris Yeltsin will officially be sworn in as Russian President for a second term this Friday.

But a new term does not mean a clean slate for Yeltsin.

He inherits all his old problems: a shaky economy and the war in Chechnya, plus a personal question mark over his own state of health.

It was a victory won more by the promise of better times to come than by his record in office.

Most Russians wanted - and still want - to believe in Boris Yeltsin's vision of the future.

But the major concern is whether Yeltsin's failing health will allow him to serve out the second term he won in last month's elections.

His only public appearance since that victory was a meeting with American Vice President Al Gore in the sanatorium where he was being treated.

Many observers believe that the ailing and ageing Russian President has become just a figurehead; the real power now being in the hands of men like General Lebed, the new head of the Russian Security Council.

But despite being hidden from the camera's eye, some analysts

SOUNDBITE: (English) I still think he has power, intellectual power and political power to create a balance of power in the Kremlin and to implement the policy he wishes.
SUPERCAPTION: Irina Kobrinskaya, Political Analyst with Carnegie Institute

But as he enters his second term, many of Yeltsin's campaign pledges, to improve the economy and end the war in Chechnya, already seem forgotten.

And the collapse of a local bank, one of Russia's biggest, shows the instability that still plagues Russia's new-found capitalism.

Dozens more banks are expected to go under in coming months.

For Yeltsin that means looking after thousands of enraged customers - and resisting the temptation of printing money to appease them. Yeltsin also faces rising industrial unrest.

His promises to settle months of unpaid wages remained just that - promises.

A sense of betrayal has already brought miners out on strike in several regions.

They may be the first of many.

Russian communists, smarting after their election defeat at Yeltsin's hands, feel that radical changes in the economy could lead to chaos.

SOUNDBITE: (English) That is what I am afraid of, that radicals can use such difficulties in order to change the situation in the political field. What I think Mr. President must do. He must accept some ideas for limiting liberal democracy in the economic field.
SUPERCAPTION: Aleksei Podberyozkin, Communist MP

Another lingering headache for President Yeltsin is the smouldering war in Chechnya.

Promises to bring peace to the region were discarded immediately after the election, and now separatist rebels have regained much of the ground they had lost to the Russians in the Chechen capital Grozny.

And if Yeltsin cannot end the war, his second term in the Kremlin could be stained by the bloodshed of urban terrorism.

Bombs have recently claimed victims in Moscow's trolley-buses, and Chechen terrorists are believed to be responsible.

In Chechnya itself, many hoped Yeltsin's victory in the elections would end the war.

But renewed fighting has killed their hopes.

This Russian woman was hit by an A-P-C.

SOUNDBITE: (Russian) What can I say? Yeltsin's becoming President doesn't make it any easier. The soldiers are creating chaos on the roads as they always have been.
SUPERCAPTION: Lyuda Koralyova, Woman hit by APC)

This man's arm was injured in an attack on his village.


SUPERCAPTION: Gennady Zyuganov, Communist leader


And that prospect presently looks as far away as ever.

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