By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — "It's not realistic to stick to the law", Sergei Yushenkov, an aide to President Boris Yeltsin, was quoted in the Moscow press recently. "The congress is now illegitimate."
More bluntly than Yeltsin, Yushenkov revealed the perspectives of the presidential camp as Russia nears the June 5 opening of the regime's hastily devised, juridically powerless Constitutional Assembly. Hopes that the gathering might swiftly and overwhelmingly endorse the draft constitution released by Yeltsin on April 29 have now collapsed.
If the president wants a new constitution on his terms, it is becoming clear, he has only one option: to overthrow the present constitution and disperse the parliament.
When it comes, the resort to openly authoritarian methods will bring the political situation back to the days of late March, when Yeltsin defied parliament and the constitution in his attempt to enforce "special rule".
The preparations for the Constitutional Assembly are now showing that Yeltsin's "victory" in the April 25 referendum yielded him no major increment in political authority. He is now up against tough sectional leaders who cannot be swayed by propaganda blitzes on state-controlled television.
An early sign of Yeltsin's weakness was his abandonment of his original plan for a Constitutional Assembly of delegates from Russia's 88 republics, regions and provinces — the "subjects of federation". By mid-May the participants had been expanded to include hundreds of representatives of local government and of organisations ranging from political parties to the Orthodox Church.
This decision reflected a strong negative response to Yeltsin's draft constitution from regional
power-brokers. "Discussion of the presidential draft in the regions is not proceeding at all smoothly", the Moscow daily Rabochaya Tribuna reported on May 25. "There is virtually no support."
Following a meeting in mid-May, legislative heads of 12 out of 19 constituent republics signed a statement attacking Yeltsin's draft and rejecting any move to have it adopted by unconstitutional means. A further hostile statement was signed by leaders of 16 republics on May 26.
Realising that an assembly of territorial heads would end in fiasco, Yeltsin expanded it to include large numbers of his supporters. But this means that the assembly can no longer be depicted as a meeting principally of elected officials, and has forced Yeltsin to abandon his earlier suggestion that the assembly, after discussing a new "basic law", would vote it into force.
By mid-May, presidential aides were suggesting that a new constitution should be approved in a referendum. An alternative, floated in a document of Democratic Russia, the president's support bloc, was to hold general elections for a constituent assembly, which would discuss and vote on the draft that emerged from the earlier, informal assembly.
The results of the last referendum, however, indicate that Yeltsin's draft constitution would almost certainly fail to gain the endorsement of the 50% of registered voters required under the current rules. Meanwhile, electing a constituent assembly would require special legislation by the current parliament, which is in no mood to vote itself out of existence. Whichever way he turns, Yeltsin has only two options: a coup or a catastrophic retreat.
Although the Constitutional Assembly will have no legal powers, there will be no shortage of participants. Attempts by parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov to encourage a boycott have fallen flat.
In part, the readiness of bitter critics of Yeltsin to participate in his assembly stems from a wish to ensure that the president cannot "stack out"
the body and have it rubber-stamp his dictates. About 100 of the 600 or so delegates will be direct appointees of Yeltsin.
The assembly and the bargaining that surrounds it are also seen by various interest groups — most notably, the regional leaders — as a chance to put demands on Yeltsin when his need for support is greatest.
Finally, there is widespread alarm at the president's draft. The proposed constitution is a vicious document which, in the words of social democratic leader Oleg Rumyantsev, would install a "Jacobin dictatorship".
Regional leaders are incensed that the draft fails to recognise the sovereignty of the constituent republics. The statement signed by leaders of 12 republics in mid-May says the draft is "one more proof of the stubborn resistance to the building of a real federation ... the draft practically excludes the rights of nationalities."
Trade unions, entrepreneurs and a number of distinguished liberals have all voiced alarm at the draft's "power" provisions. Descriptions in the western press of a proposed "French-style presidential republic" are much too kind: Yeltsin would receive powers far broader than French presidents enjoy. In France, for example, the government is formed by the parliamentary majority; in Yeltsin's draft, this right would belong to the president.
According to a study published in Rabochaya Tribuna, the Russian president performs 16 distinct functions under the present constitution. In Yeltsin's draft this would rise to 24. Meanwhile, the new, smaller, two-chamber parliament would be little more than a talk shop. The president would have unrestricted power to issue decrees and orders on any matter he chose, and the parliament could not veto acts of the president. The president would have the right to declare martial law and a state of emergency without the consent of the legislature.
The president would appoint government ministers, all
federal judges and the military high command. Only the prime minister and the highest judges would have to be ratified by the parliament. The president would be entitled to dissolve the legislature; elections would not have to be held for three months, and the ploy could be repeated as often as the president chose.
Yeltsin regards democracy as a necessary casualty in his fight to impose a privatised, user-pays future. The strategy he has now chosen is familiar for populist demagogues in a tight corner: stake out a base on popular tradition, no matter how barbaric, and run full tilt at the enemy.
Russian political traditions include both an admiration for modernising despots and a profound unease at dissension in high places. The fact that members of the Russian parliament are seen to disagree with each other is enough to damn the institution in the eyes of millions of citizens.
Yeltsin has often exploited his country's lack of democratic culture. In the referendum campaign, his printed material counterposed the "wrangling deputies" to his own "firm hand on the tiller". Pro-regime media commentators continue to argue that Russia needs a "strong executive power" to ensure reform.
However, it is a myth that despotism is necessary for social and economic progress. Without the constraints imposed by a powerful legislature, executive presidents are quite capable of implementing crackpot policies and persisting with them long after their failure becomes obvious.
This is the main reason that a key element of the coalition supporting real power for the parliament is the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. Many members of the union are appalled at Yeltsin's economic strategies, and are dismayed at the prospect that by reducing the parliament to a cipher, Yeltsin's constitution would rob business interests of a major tool for influencing state policy.
Yeltsin's draft faces a mauling in the Constitutional Assembly. The gathering seems likely to function as an extended consulting and organising session for the
president's adversaries. Meanwhile, the narrow and increasingly lonely path Yeltsin has followed since mid-March has made retreat all but impossible. I've cancelled my holidays; it's going to be a hot summer.