Some Russians Want Dictatorship (FWD)

[DEMOREP1 at aol.com]

A reality wakeup call for all election reformers on the planet - forget about
Mr. Clinton and Ms. Lewinsky.   Mr. Yeltsin had a constitution adopted in
Russia that is basically a dictatorship on paper.   Lebed spelled backward
just happens to be Debel- possibly biblical ??? ----
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Some Russians Want Dictatorship

.c The Associated Press 

MOSCOW (AP) -- One-third of Russians believe the president should have
``supreme power'' and that dictatorship is the only way out of the current
economic crisis, a poll released Wednesday says. 

Those polled named former Gen. Alexander Lebed as the most likely person to
establish a dictatorship, according to the Interfax news agency, which
reported on the poll. 

The nationwide poll was conducted among 2,400 Russians last weekend by the
National Public Opinion Center, which said it had a margin of error of plus or
minus 3 percentage points. The report did not say how the respondents were
contacted. 

The poll findings correspond to a common perception that many Russians yearn
for strong -- and even dictatorial -- leadership to solve the country's deep
problems. When he was acting prime minister earlier this month, Viktor
Chernomyrdin warned the country was in danger of lurching into fascism. 

Thirty-three percent of those polled said the Russian president should have
``supreme power,'' the pollsters said, while 34 percent said the establishment
of a dictatorship was the only solution to the economic crisis. 

Forty-five percent disagreed that a dictatorship was the only solution; 21
percent were undecided. 

Asked who is most likely to establish a dictatorship, 19 percent named Lebed,
the governor of the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk. Lebed, a nationalist, says
he strongly believes in the democratic process. 

Fourteen percent said the communists and their allies were the most likely
dictators, and 8 percent said they thought a military dictatorship was most
likely. 

Only 18 percent said they believed no one could establish a dictatorship and
23 percent were undecided. 

AP-NY-09-23-98 1629EDT