See, um, Rutskoy was not a liberal or a democrat in any sense of the word. He was a nationalist who openly called for retaking the Crimea (remember, Khrushchev sort of just... gave it to Ukraine, although it obviously had a large Ukrainian population and before Stalin a very large Tatar population, who were butchered and deported in yet another of the monstrous actions of his regime) and rather colorfully called the transfer one of the "harebrained schemes" that Khrushchev is associated with (others being growing corn everywhere, and, you know, Cuba) and stated that the people who signed it must have been drunk or something. Hardly liberal, I'd say, although even some relative liberals like Putin's mentor Anatoly Sobchak said similar things, albeit less vociferously.
Crimean reannexation could, I suppose, go through – Crimea actually had a leader in the early '90s (called Yuri Meshkov) who wanted it, but I doubt the West would stand for it (nor should they have, if I may be allowed to editorialize).
Anyways, my point is that a Rutskoy government is far more neo-Soviet conservative-nationalist than anything liberal. Yeltsin did have a few liberal candidates to choose from for his running mate (I'm thinking of Burbulis and and Galina Starovoytova, if you want a liberal Russia led by a woman (gasp!)) but he chose Rutskoy, an very conservative and dour Afghan vet with an admittedly incredible (like, Sergeant York-level) record; it's always been a bit of mystery (to me at least) as to why he chose Rutskoy, to be honest.
