Primakov says Russia's Soviet nostalgia logical
MOSCOW, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov said on Wednesday he was not surprised by a recent opinion poll which showed Russians would choose one of the late Soviet leaders as their next president if they could.
According to the poll held by the Public Opinion Foundation in late August, Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov would get 12 percent each if they could take part in next year's presidential election, ahead of all living politicians -- including Primakov.
``It's no surprise,'' Primakov, who would have come third in the hypothetical race with 10 percent, told NTV television.
``Andropov is associated with order and people need order based on law,'' he added. ``Brezhnev came second because people need stability and calm.''
Primakov, a former spy chief and foreign minister, is widely seen as a potentially strong runner in the election scheduled for mid-2000 when President Boris Yeltsin must step down.
Political analysts say the 69-year-old Primakov's appearance and manners -- reminiscent of a somewhat ponderous Soviet-era official -- have strongly helped his growing popularity.
Many Russians are disillusioned by botched economic reforms, rampant mafia crime and the fraying of cradle-to-grave job and social security since the 1991 collapse of Communist rule.
Brezhnev, Communist leader of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, is associated in the minds of many Russians with a long period of stability that followed years of purges by dictator Josef Stalin and hectic reforms by Nikita Khrushchev.
The short 1982-84 rule of Andropov, a former head of the KGB security police, is most remembered for his attempt to restore tough discipline in a Communist empire poisoned by corruption and already crumbling through years of decay.
Some Kremlin aides have said that public relations experts, working on the image of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, want him portrayed in the same light as Andropov.
Yeltsin named Putin as his favoured successor but the premier faces an uphill struggle to win over the electorate.