Around the World

Russian legislature delays impeach vote

Even though few expected that the State Duma would vote to impeach Yeltsin, the Kremlin wanted to avoid the spectacle of a debate. Political analysts said that yesterday's decision likely means an end to the Communist-led impeachment drive, unless a Kremlin scandal erupts, or Yeltsin fires Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov or Communist ministers in the Cabinet.

Communists are trying simply "to preserve this saber over the head of the president, without actually hoping to succeed," said Igor Bunin, a political analyst.

The prospect of an impeachment vote - even though it seemed certain to fail - added to the uneasy atmosphere in Moscow in recent weeks. The prosecutor general, whom Yeltsin is seeking to oust, has threatened to expose high-level corruption if he doesn't keep his job, and Yeltsin has hinted that he may reshuffle the government yet again.

On Friday, Yeltsin said Primakov was "useful" for now but that the Cabinet "needs reinforcement." His remarks provoked a flurry of speculation and warnings of more political instability.

Primakov appealed Saturday to the legislature to drop the impeachment proceedings, saying "such a political game is irresponsible and dangerous" and "could provoke a serious political crisis."

Yeltsin asked the State Duma either to vote on impeachment or drop the issue, according to his spokesman, Dmitri Yakushkin.

Legislative leaders said impeachment will not be taken up again for at least a month. The Russian stock market reacted to the postponement with a slight rise.

Yakushkin said, "No matter what arguments are given in favor of why postponement took place, I think it is explained by fear of failure."

The charges against Yeltsin include accusations of illegally conspiring to dissolve the Soviet Union in 1991; overthrowing the constitutional order and improperly using force against the elected parliament in 1993 and launching the ill-fated war against Chechen separatists from 1994 to 1996.

Election offers hope to war-weary Algeria

More than 75,000 Algerians have died since 1992 in one of the decade's dirtiest but least-visible civil wars. The conflict has pitted a government dominated by generals against shadowy guerrillas who kill in the name of Islam, but it has left few families unmarked.

Yet now, Algerians are permitting themselves their first taste of hope. "We have to be optimistic, given what we've lived through," Algiers human-rights lawyer Moustafa Bouchachi said with a sigh. "And something has changed in this country."

After an explosion of bloodletting in 1997 and '98, the radical Muslim terror campaign is being slowly squelched: 2,000 people were killed in the second half of 1998, compared with 6,000 in the second half of 1997, and the proportion of civilian victims has dropped significantly, according to Western estimates.

"People used to be scared all the time," said a foreign resident of Algiers. "Now they're out at night."

As they struggle to close a violent chapter in their history, Algerians are trying - again - to open a noble one: They are about to elect a new president in a general election that has impressed even critical observers inside and outside Algeria with its pluralism, its openness and its potential for effecting change in a dispirited and economically troubled society.

If the election goes off Thursday with at least plausible honesty, it will mark the first time an Algerian president - in this case, Liamine Zeroual, a former general pressed into service in 1994 - will have given up power not only voluntarily but also ahead of schedule. The vote - called more than a year before Zeroual's term was to expire - would be by many measures the first truly competitive presidential election in the Arab world. And for a country known chiefly for atrocities and authoritarianism, it's a particular paradox.

Seventeen million voters will have a choice of seven candidates. It is probable that Abdelaziz Bouteflika, a longtime foreign minister lured out of retirement to run, will garner the largest percentage.

He is known as the "consensus candidate," a euphemism that means he is the choice of the generals who have controlled the North African nation, usually behind the scenes, since it won independence from France in 1962.

Bouteflika's opponents include three seasoned politicians: Mouloud Hamrouche, a former prime minister cashiered for an

excess of reformist zeal; Ahmed Taleb-Ibrahimi, another former minister who now carries the Islamic banner; and Hocine

Ait-Ahmed, a grand old man of the Algerian revolution and perpetual opponent (and occasional prisoner) of the regimes it

spawned.

Ait-Ahmed, 73, had a heart attack a week ago and is effectively out of the race, raising the chances that Bouteflika could be

forced into a runoff at the end of the month.

The relative pluralism of the election suggests ``a genuine opening for a limited kind of democratic reform,'' said William B.

Quandt, a former National Security Council official who teaches at the University of Virginia. If Hamrouche, the candidate most

likely to force Bouteflika to a runoff, should win, it would be ``an amazing development,'' Quandt said.

It also would be a real test of whether the powers that be will allow democracy to take its course.

Algerians are realistic. ``Let's not be naive,'' said Nadia Bey, an Algerian radio journalist. ``The army has opted for a candidate,

and there is major campaign machinery working on his behalf. There won't be any surprises.''

But she, too, can't resist feeling good about the way the election has unfolded and what it holds in store. ``It will be a big

breakthrough in a long democratic process. We are a young people, and compared to next door, we are avant-garde.''

Tunisia and Morocco, two of Algeria's neighbors, enjoy peace and relatively greater economic security, but civil liberties and

voting power are more limited in those countries.

But Algeria's occasional steps toward democracy usually have been followed by forced marches backward.

The last time the country tried opening the political system _ after riots in 1988 that left hundreds of young people dead at the

hands of security forces _ voters decisively rejected the National Liberation Front, which had ruled since independence. They

flocked to a radical new party that espoused a model of Islamic theocracy _ a political system based on the Koran _ that has

become familiar across the Muslim world.

In the first round of parliamentary voting in late 1991, the Islamic Salvation Front won overwhelmingly. But before the

second, conclusive round, the elections were canceled and the Salvation Front was banned.

The generals' brazen theft of the election provoked the long terrorist campaign by several Muslim militant groups, the

deadliest being the Armed Islamic Group. In nighttime sorties of shooting and throat slitting, bombing and disemboweling,

they have terrorized a population _ and engendered comparable ruthlessness by the Algerian security forces, which also have

helped to arm the civilian population in self-defense.

At the war's bloodiest point, hundreds were dying every week _ and in January last year, more than 400 villagers were killed in a

single night.

That may have been the darkest moment before the dawn that many Algerians now perceive. The massacres of the 1998

Ramadan season brought international attention to Algeria and its horrific strife.

But some now believe the massacres may have convinced Algerians of the futility of continued struggle.

``The last seven years have been a painful experience both for the military and for the Islamists,'' observed Bouchachi. ``Now

they are both becoming convinced that democracy is good for them. They see it's not possible to rule by religion, and it's not

possible to rule by kalasch@'' _ by the gun, that is, the Kalashnikov, AK-47 assault rifle that many Muslim guerrillas wield.

The last presidential election, which Zeroual won in 1995, was regarded by pro-democracy groups as relatively honest. But two

subsequent elections _ a referendum on a new constitution in 1996 and a parliamentary contest in 1997 _ were widely believed

to have been rigged.

To champions of democracy, the current campaign looks more encouraging. The military has pledged, and stuck to, public

neutrality _ the generals are reported to be divided in their enthusiasm for Bouteflika _ and Zeroual appears committed to

fairness. The presence of ``genuine democrats'' like Hamrouche and Ait-Ahmed on the ballot ``is a sign that things aren't

completedly rigged,'' observed a diplomat in Algiers.

LA TIMES-WASHINGTON POST-04-12-99 1308EDT

04-13-99