Russia: Calls Grow for Yeltsin's Resignation 🇷🇺

(18 Jan 1999) Russian/Eng/Nat

The Russian President's latest admission to hospital has once again brought calls for his resignation.

Kremlin doctors gathered in Moscow's elite Central Clinical Hospital on Monday to examine Boris Yeltsin and set a course of treatment for his stomach ulcer.

Yeltsin was admitted to the clinic on Sunday after days of speculation about his condition - he had appeared only rarely in public since the start of the year.

Boris Yeltsin was admitted to the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow on Sunday for treatment on his bleeding stomach ulcer.

Presidential spokesman Dmitri Yakushkin reported Yeltsin was in stable condition.

It was expected the Russian president would have to spend two to three weeks in hospital.

Meanwhile, Yakushkin told Russian television late on Sunday that there was no question of any presidential powers being transferred to Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov.

The office of the prime minister in Moscow insisted Primakov was making no changes to his schedule as a result of Yeltsin's latest illness.

Political reaction in the Russian capital was predictable.

Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, runner-up to Yeltsin in the 1996 presidential elections, predicted early presidential elections this year - they are scheduled for the summer of the year two-thousand.

He said it was time for the president to step down from office.

SOUNDBITE: (Russian)
"Everyone's known he's ill for a long time. We wish him a recovery. . In these circumstances it's time for him to go and rest and undergo full treatment. But he's been ill since summer 1995 and he hasn't worked a full day since then.
SUPER CAPTION: Gennady Zyuganov, Leader Communist Party

Konstantin Borovoi claimed Yeltsin's illness left Russian in a vacuum, where the coalition government of Yevgeny Primakov was isolated in the world.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"It's more artificial than a real problem. The real problem is now connected with Primakov's government. He cannot make an effective, normal environment for the economy of Russia."
SUPER CAPTION: Konstantin Borovoi, Democratic deputy

Nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky had said on Sunday evening Yeltsin's illness was just a tactic.

According to Zhirinovsky, known for his flamboyant statements, asserted Yeltsin was lying low to watch how his political rivals jostled for position.

SOUNDBITE: (Russian)
"It's the last reconnaissance before the battle. The president wants to know where power is in this year of elections to the Duma. Now some people may make some risky steps, and everything will become clear (to the president)."
SUPER CAPTION: Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Leader of Liberal-Democratic Party

The sixty-seven-year old President has been ill repeatedly in recent years.

His health has appeared to be in decline since he suffered multiple heart attacks during his 1996 re-election campaign.

He underwent quintuple heart bypass surgery later in that same year.

Since then, he has suffered several serious respiratory ailments, including two bouts of pneumonia, the latest in late November and early December of 1998.

Yeltsin has been keeping a low profile for months, spending almost all of his time at his Gorky-9 country residence just outside Moscow.

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