President Boris Yeltsin said Wednesday that the victory of his opponents in parliamentary elections was surprising but not tragic, and he promised to give the voters what they want: order, effective government, and defense of the common man's interests.
"Voters were united in one thing. Russia needs strong rule, Russia needs order. People are tired of unfulfilled decisions and the growth in crime," Yeltsin said. "The constitution enables us to create order by legal means."Yeltsin struck an upbeat tone at a Kremlin press conference.
Yeltsin's ultranationalist and Communist opponents appear to have won as many as two-thirds of the 450 seats in the State Duma, the powerful lower house of parliament.
Results in the upper house, the Federation Council, are not yet clear. But the Central Election Commission said Wednesday that the 176-member upper house will contain more than 40 members of the old, hard-line parliament that Yeltsin dissolved in September.
Wednesday's news conference comes a day after Yeltsin abruptly dissolved the powerful Security Ministry, the successor to the KGB. He said previous efforts to reform the secret police had been "mainly cosmetic" and the ministry was an obstacle to political and economic change.
In place of the Security Ministry, Yeltsin created a new Federal Counterintelligence Service that will report directly to him. He said all former KGB employees must reapply if they want to work for the new service - signaling a major purge of politically disloyal agents.
Yeltsin appears to blame the Security Ministry for failing to warn him of the strength of ultranationalists before the election.