President Boris Yeltsin's pneumonia, coming so soon after his triple bypass heart surgery, has introduced yet another episode of uncertainty into the affairs of Russia's political leadership. Despite the president's proverbial resilience, inevitably attention has focused on alternative figures who might take over if necessary. Mr Alexander Lebed, who was dismissed as secretary of the security council last October, has not been slow to offer his services. He has been visiting Germany over the weekend to introduce himself to parliamentary leaders and will be in Washington today and tomorrow as the guest of a Republican senator to attend some of the ceremonies marking President Clinton's second term inauguration.
In Moscow last week Mr Lebed told foreign correspondents that he expected events to come to a (head in March when it becomes obvious to all that Mr Yeltsin can no longer continue in office. This is a large assumption, given Mr Yeltsin's powers of recovery and the readiness and ability of those around him to keep the system running in his absence or when he is operating only at half power. There is, however, a clear limit on the degree to which such a constrained style of leadership can remain credible domestically or internationally.
It cannot command the sustained and necessary support over the length of time required to see through the Russian reform programme and to put the vast country's international position on a more sure and stable footing. The fragility of domestic affairs is graphically illustrated by reports that many layers of professionals, manual workers and members of the armed forces have not been paid for months on end, just as others, many of them closely associated with the leadership group around Mr Yeltsin, have been so provocatively enriching themselves.
Mr Lebed makes a convincing appeal to many of these newly impoverished constituencies. According to recent opinion polls he commands the support of some 40 per cent of the electorate, after having received 15 per cent support in the presidential election last June. He shot up in the public estimation as a result of his conduct of the Chechen peace talks his decision to withdraw Russian troops, although it was strongly contested by rival power centres in Moscow, was crucial to the eventual outcome, despite his dismissal from office.
Those who schemed against him have been identified in the public debate as involved with corruption and power brokerage, whereas he has cultivated the image of an honest ex soldier ready and willing to develop his home and foreign policies. He has had sufficient success to have attracted the attention of elements of the liberal, nationalist and communist opposition, who are willing to consider an alternative power bloc with him, should Mr Yeltsin indeed prove to be too ill to continue. In the meantime Mr Lebed is quite willing to forge alliances with more shady elements in order to generate financial and media support, such as Mr Alexander Korzhakov, a former Yeltsin intimate.
Coming weeks will tell whether all this is idle - speculation over a successor to the ailing president. Reports yesterday that Mr Yeltsin will be released tomorrow remained unconfirmed by the Kremlin. But a busy calendar of international meetings in coming weeks, as NATO enlargement and a new security pact with Russia loom as great issues, will put a harsh international spotlight on the president's ability to govern.