Yeltsin's choice for prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, declared yesterday that he wants to impose an ``economic dictatorship.''

Some took the remarks to mean that Chernomyrdin wants Russian governments to lock themselves in a monetary straitjacket and surrender the power to print currency to an independent currency board.

``We will strictly tie the monetary mass to the gold and foreign reserves of the central bank,'' said Chernomyrdin, who has been rejected as prime minister once by the lower house of parliament and seemed sure to be rebuffed again yesterday if the vote had not been put off. According to Boris Fyodorov, who is Chernomyrdin's deputy in the present acting government, the government would have to print enough money to clear its debts triggering a burst ofinflation before it could make the change.

But international monetary fund managing director Michel Camdessus warned that Russia was not ready for a currency board, and warned authorities against printing roubles to pay Moscow's bills.

With all these balls in the air, the lower house or Duma decided not to put Yeltsin's nomination of Chernomyrdin to a second vote yesterday and agreed instead to ``round table''talks with the Kremlin to seek a compromise before the vote on Monday.

Central banker Sergei Dubinin is to meet the heads of leading banks today whose inability to pay depositors has nearly completely frozen the country's financial system. Both the Kremlin and communist opponents say delay in choosing a new prime minister can only hurt Russia, which was thrown into instability after devaluation of the rouble and default on some debt last month.