"Nezavisimaya gazeta" on 22 August reported that leader
of the Russia is Our Home (NDR) faction, Aleksandr Shokhin,
offered to arrange that Yabloko leader Grigorii Yavlinskii
be offered the post of Duma speaker in exchange for his
support of Chernomyrdin's candidacy. According to the
newspaper, NDR realizes that it must attract Yabloko into
a new parliamentary majority made up of the NDR, the Communist
Party, Russia's Regions, and the Liberal Democratic Party
of Russia. Yabloko's popularity has grown since the last
elections, and the movement could attract the supporters
of two presidential hopefuls, Krasnoyarsk governor Aleksandr
Lebed and Moscow Mayor Yurii Luzhkov. Sergei Ivanenko,
a Yabloko deputy, dismissed Shokhin's offer with laughter
and the counterproposal that Chernomyrdin be speaker and
Yavlinskii prime minister. JAC.
