ABSTRACT
In mid-January 1997, Boris Yeltsin again was incapacitated by his recurrent illness, and Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin exacerbated the leadership vacuum by taking vacation at the time of Yeltsin's hospitalization. Alexander Lukashenka, who had bargained for a much more solid union, hoped that the documents prepared for signing between Moscow and Minsk would 'raise Belarusian-Russian relations to a new level and make the integration processes irreversible'. Yeltsin's prolonged illness exposed his presidency to criticism from all quarters. But the most serious danger to the ailing president and to Russian constitutionalism was his incapacity to restrain his inner circle – the Family, as the Russian press christened it. A president whose authority depends on intervention by his entourage sounds exotic even for Russian constitutionalism. The agenda of the first Duma's session contained a draft resolution, 'On the termination of the presidential powers of Boris Yeltsin'.
