IF ANYONE sleeps uneasily after the election to the State Duma of Gen Alexander Korzhakov it will be the Kremlin chief of staff, Mr Anatoly Chubais. Mr Chubais has been accused of acting as unelected regent of Russia during President Yeltsin's protracted illness.
Gen Korzakov, since yesterday the deputy for the industrial city of Tula south of Moscow, knows most of the secrets of the Yeltsin presidency, and with his newly won parliamentary immunity is threatening, selectively, to spill the beans.
Last June Mr Chubais was instrumental in the sacking of Gen Korzhakov as head of the presidential bodyguard.
Gen Korzhakov lost his job following a bizarre incident in which one of his subordinates arrested two members of the campaign to re elect President Yeltsin headed by Mr Chubais. The men were stopped on their way out of government buildings with a suitcase containing $500,000.
Their arrest was quickly portrayed as an "attempted coup" by Russian television stations under the control of Mr Chubais's campaign organisation. Gen Korzhhakov lost his job along with the head of the security services, Gen Mikliail Barsukov, and first deputy prime minister, Mr Oleg Soskovets - the man who walked down the steps of the aircraft at Shannon to tell Mr Albert Reynolds that Mr Yeltsin was indisposed.
The palace coup in which the three men lost their jobs brought Mr Chubais and his allies, including Mr Yeltsin's daughter Ms Tatyana Dyachenko, to the forefront of the Kremlin power struggle and this has not been forgotten by the Korzhakov faction.
Gen Korzhakov had been Mr Yeltsin's closest associate for a decade. In his time in the Kremlin he learned a lot about what was going on and like a good KGB officer stored his intelligence for later use.
Now, he says, the time has come to lift the carpet under which the dirt has been swept, for his own benefit and for that of his new mentor, the sacked security chief and would be president, Gen Alexander Lebed.
Here the paradoxical nature of Russian politics reaches its highest point. Gen Lebed is extremely popular as Russia's "Mr Clean"; Gen Korzhakov, his ally, is widely regarded as one of the shadiest operators on the political scene, a man who has become immensely wealthy with no visible means of support.
His election to the Duma as the first past the post of 10 candidates has granted him instant parliamentary immunity against arrest; more importantly, it has granted him immunity to say what he likes about his political enemies.
This latter immunity is used daily, even hourly, by Duma deputies and is generally disregarded by the public. In Gen Korzhakov's case, however, any revelations he makes will have a credibility engendered by his long years as a decisive behind the scenes operator in Mr Yeltsin's entourage. At one stage he was regarded as the only person Mr Yeltsin trusted and as such the virtual "ruler of all Russia" during the president's frequent indispositions.
Gen Korzhakov polled nearly 27 per cent of the votes in the Tula by election, almost 10 points ahead of the local pro Yeltsin candidate Mr Eduard Pashchenko, with the FIDE world chess champion, Mr Anatoly Karpov, in third place as a pro communist candidate.
Mr Nikolai Novikov, a local "biznesman", who finished fourth with over 10 per cent, would dearly have loved the immunity, which goes with the job. He fought his campaign from prison where he faces charges of extortion. He will now remain there.
Ms Yelena Mavrodi, wife of Russia's most successful confidence trickster Mr Sergei Mavrodi, was disqualified for bribing voters.
