Yeltsin
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Thousands mourn slain Russian lawmaker

In this story:

• Gloom and soul-searching
• No faith in Yeltsin
• Stability from Primakov?
• Hope for a better future
• Related stories and sites

MOSCOW (CNN) -- President Boris Yeltsin, who is in a Moscow hospital for a third day because of pneumonia, was in stable condition, Kremlin officials said Tuesday.

"His condition is stable. The president received necessary treatments today. His temperature is normal," Yeltsin's press secretary, Dmitry Yakushkin, said by telephone, adding that the president was able to walk around in his room.

"Pneumonia is pneumonia; it's not a very simple illness, especially for someone of a certain age," he said. "Yeltsin will stay in hospital for as long as it takes to complete his treatment."

On Monday, the Kremlin said the Russian leader would likely stay in the hospital for about 10 days.

Yeltsin's latest health problems -- he fell ill twice in October -- have sparked renewed calls for him to step down voluntarily before his second and final term ends in 2000.

But Yeltsin's first deputy chief of staff, Oleg Sysuyev, on Tuesday told the Russian Interfax news agency that Yeltsin would "work until 2000," saying that early presidential elections would be "disastrous for the country."

Gloom and soul-searching

Former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, right, pays his last respects as he stands by the coffin of Galina Starovoitova during the funeral service in St. Petersburg

But the government's political instability and the murder of liberal parliament member Galina Starovoitova -- whose funeral attracted thousands of mourners on Tuesday -- have shocked Russians into deep soul-searching about the state of their country after seven turbulent years of democracy and economic reform efforts.

Yeltsin's hospitalization and the murder have strengthened the impression of many that Russia is dangerously rudderless.

"No one expected the road to freedom to be so hard or that it would take so much courage to carry on the struggle honorably and to stand up for our ideals," Vladimir Lukin, a prominent liberal, told mourners for Starovoitova on Tuesday.

The economy is in dire straits, divisions between liberals and Communists are as wide as ever, faith in the legal and political authorities is almost zero, and Yeltsin's illness has increased pressure on him to quit before his term ends.

The sense of gloom is heightened by the lack of a clear alternative to Yeltsin and the lack of public trust in politicians, particularly after a series of anti-Semitic remarks by a Communist deputy went largely unpunished.

Marina Salye, a liberal activist, voiced the fears of many democrats in the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

"The murder of Galina Starovoitova is... the start of a mass attack on what remains of the incomplete process of democratization," she said.

Many liberals fear the democratic reforms made since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and the liberals who made them, are under threat and that no one is there to defend them.

No faith in Yeltsin

Yeltsin embodied the nation's hopes when he became Russia's president in 1991 but his seven years in the Kremlin have failed to bring peace and prosperity. Opinion polls show the vast majority of Russians have lost faith in him.

Inflation is rising again, industrial output has failed to take off as planned, privatization is widely regarded as making a chosen few rich and corruption is rife. Contract killings and corruption are common, and few murder cases are solved.

Yeltsin's decline, and actions such as sending troops to try to quell separatists in the Chechnya region in 1994, have deprived him of moral authority and resulted in what many commentators say is a power vacuum and an anarchic society.

"Galina Starovoitova's murder is a tragic illustration of the lack of any authority in the country," the newspaper Kommersant said on Tuesday.

Stability from Primakov?

Primakov

Power has gradually ebbed away from Yeltsin toward Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov in the last two months. Some commentators welcome the shift, saying Primakov now provides more stability than Yeltsin.

But others question Primakov's commitment to market reforms and say he could now harbor presidential ambitions, reducing the chances that he will carry out badly needed reforms because they could prove painful and damage his election chances.

Many commentators say this scenario could doom Russia to political inertia and economic crisis at least until a new president is elected.

"That's the impression one has to have -- that President Yeltsin is only able to carry out his duties in a highly limited fashion and that all domestic politics in Russia are focused on the question 'When will President Yeltsin's era end and what will come after that?'" German Deputy Foreign Minister Guenter Verheugen said in a recent radio interview.

Hope for a better future

Despite the gloom, liberals are hoping Starovoitova's death could be a turning point.

They are calling for all liberals and so-called democrats to put aside the petty differences and rivalries that have divided them for years and unite against the communists and nationalists who dominate the Duma lower house of parliament.

Nikolai Svanidze, a television commentator, said Russians must learn from Starovoitova's murder by analyzing what had made it possible so that such tragedies are not repeated.

"Society, for its self-preservation, must find out how this murder became possible," he said.

Some say Yeltsin could offer a way out by resigning. Others say he should stay until his presidential term ends to delay the inevitable mudslinging that an election would bring and the delays it could cause for economic reforms.

Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.