RUSSIA - Jan. 6 - Primakov Presidential Bid Against Putin Called Doubtful.

Oleg Morozov, a leading legislator in the party of former PM Yevgeni Primakov says he doubted Primakov would run for president, further clearing the field for Vladimir Putin, the front-runner and acting president. Morozov, secretary of the co-ordinating council of the Fatherland-All Russia movement, makes the comments as speculation mounts in Moscow about whether Putin, who enjoys public approval ratings based on the Chechen war, would face any serious competition in the Mar. 26 vote. Primakov, who served as PM in the aftermath of the Aug. 1998 ruble devaluation, jointly headed an election bloc in the parliamentary campaigns in December with Mayor Yuri Luzhkov of Moscow. (Both have been considered possible presidential candidates, and Primakov had announced on the eve of the parliamentary vote that he would run.) But Primakov's chances have suffered several setbacks. Putin, who was a veteran of the KGB a few months ago, is now acting president and commands powerful tools of incumbency, including 2 of the 3 major TV channels. Primakov and Luzhkov were targets of a smear campaign in the parliamentary races in December, engineered by the coterie of aides and financiers around then-Pres. Boris Yeltsin. Primakov's ratings fell, also in part because his support was eroded by Putin's popularity. Then, a group of prominent governors who had been allied with Primakov and Luzhkov announced this week that they would instead support Putin for president, a major setback because the governors have sway over election procedures in their regions. Primakov has not restated his desire to run since Yeltsin's surprise retirement on Dec. 31. The presidential elections, originally scheduled for June 4, will now be held on Mar. 26, forcing possible contenders to accelerate their campaigns. They must submit a half-million signatures supporting their candidacy by Feb. 13 to the Central Election Commission, which will certify a final list of candidates later January. Primakov's group has not formally decided who will be its presidential candidate, and it is still possible that he could run, but Morozov's comments suggest the former FM and spy chief is rethinking whether he wants to fight Putin. Morozov says that as of now, Primakov "will hardly be able to get a political rating necessary for victory". He also says it would be "senseless" for Primakov to run against Putin, "who holds similar positions on many points". Morozov also says Primakov could make a good speaker of the lower house of Parliament, the State Duma. (Political parties are striving to choose a speaker. The leading candidate appears to be Sergei Stepashin, another former PM who is a member of the Yabloko bloc.) On Jan. 6, Communist Party leader, Gennadi Zyuganov, is nominated by his party to be its presidential candidate. (Zyuganov has a steady base of about a 5th of the electorate but was defeated by Yeltsin in 1996 and is not seen as a serious challenger now to Putin.) The Yabloko leader, Grigori Yavlinsky, has announced that he also will run for president, but he sees Putin as almost invincible. The ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky says on Jan. 6 he would run but adds: "Putin's chances of winning are bigger than any one of us".