It was not just that Yeltsin had blinked first in the battle of wills between presidency and Parliament. It was not just that MPs, steeling themselves for a final vote on the despised Viktor Chernomyrdin, no longer had to choose between surrender and expulsion from the Duma's comfort zone.

What was extraordinary was that Yeltsin had, for the first time, openly taken up a suggestion by one of his fiercest parliamentary opponents -- Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the Yabloko left-liberal movement, who astonished Russia on Monday by first suggesting Primakov's name. What was not clear was the real nature of the victory. Had Parliament defeated a too-powerful presidency? Had Yeltsin's aides overcome a sick patriarch too weak, physically andpolitically, to resist their wheeler-dealing?

Or was it a personal victory by Yeltsin over himself: the dark, stubborn, authoritarian side overcome by his sense that his country, slowly throttled by economic disaster, desperately needed a compromise?

There is little doubt that the Duma is happy with Primakov. Apart from the extraordinary outbursts of the bitter Chernomyrdin and the camp rantings of the bogus ultra-nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the country's power brokers choired the praises of the ex-spy chief.

Even Boris Berezovsky, the manipulative super-tycoon who gave his battered protege Chernomyrdin time on his television channel to address an indifferent populace on the unfairness of it all, was none the less obliged to chum up to the new nominee. Yavlinsky, who emerges greatly strengthened from Russia's three-week political upheaval, suggested that Primakov should become prime minister as far back as April, after Chernomyrdin had been sacked and the president was browbeating the Dumainto accepting Sergei Kiriyenko. No one noticed.

This time the liberal leader hit the mark. In an interview in the weekly Obshchaya Gazyeta, he said Primakov's most important role would not be to rescue the economy but to protect the constitution. Only Primakov, with his cross-party support in Parliament, the trust of Yeltsin, the backing of the security forces and his lack of ties to a business lobby, could ensure that the next presidential election -- due in 2000, but sooner if Yeltsin's health fails -- went ahead fairly.

But when the jubilation over Primakov fades, two uncertainties will remain: what kind of government will Primakov have, and has the Duma won anything more than a temporary breathing space as long as the presidential powers remain for a future authoritarian leader to win.

Primakov finds himself in a more powerful position than any previous Russian prime minister. Never before have the security ministries -- defence, interior, security -- had one of their own people in charge. Neverbefore has the prospect of a sustained honeymoon with Parliament offered a new government such chances to push through the laws needed for new economic strategies. But Primakov, who has health problems of his own, has an economic emergency on his hands. He may be unaware of the limited room for manoeuvre. And although his economic guru, the former planning minister Yuri Maslyukov, is far from the command-economy freak he is often painted, he too may have unrealistic hopes of the resources available to revive the industrial base.

The danger for the Duma is that, drunk on victory, it may abandon the struggle with the presidency: the fight for amendments to the constitution to deprive the institution of the powers it wields.