Seleznev announced on 18 January that he would not leave the Communist Party during his term as speaker, violating an informal tradition of nonpartisanship. He trained as an auto mechanic in the 1950s and played a key role in building up the Lada plant in Tolyatti. Presidential economics aide Aleksandr Livshits has been tipped as another possible successor to Chubais, according to Segodnya on 18 January. As the 1996 budget is already fixed and Russia is currently negotiating with internal organizations for another large loan, it is unlikely that Russian economic policy will shift dramatically in the short term. The newspaper is owned by a former citizen of Jordan, Shaaban Khafez Shaaban, who became a Russian citizen after marrying a Russian woman.
Russian law prohibits foreigners from establishing media outlets.
The chamber does not have the power to enforce its own decisions. Izvestiya's political commentator, Otto Latsis, has asked President Boris Yeltsin to relieve him of his duties on the Presidential Council. In a letter to the president published in Izvestiya on 19 January, Latsis denounced the storming of Pervomaiskoe and the war in Chechnya. Latsis said that he does not want to hold any position that might be perceived as even indirectly supporting Yeltsin's decisions on the war in Chechnya. The Presidential Council, created in February 1993, has no real power beyond advising the president.