Neither in Russia, nor in the opposition, it was not possible to shift the popularly elected presidents

Both stood. Yeltsin got even easier. His impeachment fell apart in the lower house of parliament. Clinton, hidden by the House of Representatives at the end of 1998, entered in 1999 the first popularly elected US President to impeachment. Several painful weeks passed before he was justified by the Senate.

In Yeltsin, it came to impeachment after the most severe economic crisis, forced surrender to the Communists and mass performances, spurred by animal hatred of the country's president.

The impeachment initially started as another symbolic gesture in the fight against Yeltsin, and the whole enterprise had some kind of fake look. Neither the Kremlin nor the Russian citizens paid special attention to the go for the key, for the key to “their own”, the communist, were not for interrogations, and the impeachment initiators themselves were completely non -mere. Terrible formulations of accusations like the genocide of the Russian people or the weakening of the country's defense capacity sounded more like a quote from the next speech of Zyuganov than the exposures of real crimes.

Nevertheless, by the spring, the opposition, not meeting resistance from either the forever the Slassing President or the demoralized administration, felt more confident, and this frivolous impeachment suddenly turned into a real political threat.

Clinton's prosecutions were able to bring the matter to impeachment, despite the fact that America reached unprecedented well -being during his reign: a childless budget, a decrease in unemployment, the boom in the stock market. And grateful Americans for the most part approved their president. However, after the first reports that Clinton was in an impermissible connection with a young trainee (she denied this under the oath), immediately and seriously spoke of removing him from power. The enemies gloated, one hundred Ronniks lamented, the independent prosecutor Starr triumphed, anticipating the victory, the administration’s employees experienced the adultery of the president as a personal insult: because of his stupid weakness, all their work went to dust.

After almost two years, a prominent American legalist Jeffrey Tubin came to the conclusion that Kennet Starr had every chance of finishing the impeachment. To do this, he should have acted quickly and decisively: to take advantage of the deep shock of the Americans and then, in the first days, to bring down the testimony of Monica Levinsky on them, not allowing the administration to come to their senses and distract the public's attention to Clinton's successes in state affairs. But Starr still did not agree to guarantee Levinsky that she would not be attracted to court for a lie under the oath. Without this, the trainee did not want to tell the truth, and when after a few months they finally collided with Starr, most of the Americans managed to reason that they were also illegitimate, to lie about them, that Clinton, although not suitable for moral samples, but still not oath-criminal, and his male pranks were not drawn to serious crimes, for which the founding fathers provided the possibility of displacing the president from his post.

This change of mood occurred thanks to the purposeful efforts of the presidential administration. She demonized Starra and convinced the Americans that in front of them is the story of sexual rather than constitutional content - and achieved both goals. Enormous forces were mobilized to fight the impeachment, including the first lady, but the opponent with Kennet Starr, at the head, was not inferior to the Clinton team either in legal sophistication, or determination, or in resources. The House of Representatives voted for the impeachment of President Clinton on two points of accusation in giving false testimony under the oath and in hindering the departure of justice.

The Republicans' special hatred of Clinton is explained by the fact that they are accustomed to be a “presidential party”, since Clinton took away their presidency, they only thought about how to shift him from the post. Meanwhile, during the post -war years, the longest period of continuous republican government is 12 years under Reagan and Bush. Is this a habit! Here we ruled the Communists for seventy years and heard did not hear about any constitutional change of power. This is a habit, this is hatred! But after all, the Communists also had to stir up their noble rage into some kind of legal framework. Tormenting from the need imposed by him to put a storm of feelings into procedural forms, they suppressed the cry of the gang Yeltsi torn from the throat! And, interrupting the new Criminal Code on the old, interpreting the law at all, they presented "abuse of authority that entailed grave consequences", and "treason in the form of a conspiracy to seize power." In legist America, Starr had to “reach” the vulgar adultery to the level of oath -crime, in the not too legal Russia, the Communists tried to overthrow their own regime into the wording of Article 64 of the Old Criminal Code. In both countries, the prosecutors lost.

In the Senate, the Republicans still lacked the voices for impeachment, so the senators tried to turn faster to keep their faces.

As for the Kremlin, in recent weeks before impeachment he achieved public support for many governors, not excluding the Moscow mayor. And even the then Prime Minister Primakov himself was forced to speak on the side of the president. And for fidelity, Russian President Boris Yeltsin struck Primakov and caught up with such fear that deputies did not vote for impeachment.

Both presidents were stronger and more successful than their haters. Apparently, the popular chosen is not without reason.

M.L.