By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — As early as mid-year, President Boris Yeltsin's power as ruler of Russia could come to an end. This has become a distinct likelihood with the prospect that massive voter abstention will invalidate the constitutional referendum set for April 11.
Russia's present constitution was adopted under Brezhnev in 1978, and provides only a vague delineation between the powers of the president and parliament. Over the past few years, makeshift decisions have brought about a highly "presidential" form of rule, under which Yeltsin in formal terms has considerably more power than a US president.
Like Gorbachev before him, Yeltsin has responded to increasing national crisis and the erosion of his real control by trying to concentrate more and more authority in the presidency. This has involved a protracted struggle with the parliament for complete control over ministerial appointments.
In a dramatic clash during the December sitting of the full parliament, the Congress of People's Deputies, Yeltsin demanded the calling of a referendum giving the people a straightforward choice between a "presidential" and a "parliamentary" system of government. The deputies refused. A compromise was then worked out under which the population would be asked to approve a set of principles for a new constitution. A date was fixed, and a parliamentary commission was appointed to draft the question which would appear on the ballot papers.
Yeltsin clearly regards the referendum as critical to the survival of his presidency as an effective force. He has been quoted as declaring, "The referendum is the fate of Russia. It must not be lost." In the days after the December congress wound up, he began assembling a team of aides to work intensively on the referendum and related issues.
Yeltsin's supporters among the parliamentary deputies have since put forward a set of proposals for the referendum question that would substantially strengthen the president's powers — a step described by opponents as creating a virtual presidential dictatorship.
The proposals would also guarantee the inviolability of private property and remove all restrictions on private ownership of land. The smaller of the two parliamentary bodies, the Supreme
Soviet, now has until March 1 to decide on a final draft of the referendum question.
Yeltsin chose to demand a referendum in the belief that he retains a mass popular following and can call the bluff of his adversaries by "going to the people". And indeed, Yeltsin is clearly more popular than the parliament, which was elected almost four years ago in quite different political circumstances, and which is peopled heavily with old-style Soviet apparatchiki.
But just like the majority of parliamentary deputies, Yeltsin and his aides are members of the nomenklatura, former high-fliers in the Soviet system. For many years, their familiarity with the conditions of life of ordinary citizens has been limited and indirect. Cocooned in chauffeur-driven cars and prestige apartments, they now have little sense of how the policies they have implemented have affected the thinking of the mass of Russians.
In addition, they have allowed themselves to forget an important point about referendums. No matter how carefully the questions are phrased to yield the desired result, citizens still have the chance to express their disgust with the whole process — simply by staying away from the polls.
That is what vast numbers of Russians will do on April 11. On January 26 the newspaper Izvestiya published the results of a survey conducted 11 days earlier in 20 Russian cities. Of those polled, the largest group, 33%, replied that they did not intend to vote. Thirty per cent indicated that they would "support the president" and 15% the parliament; 20% found it "difficult to say".
Under existing legislation, 50% of registered voters must participate in the referendum for its result to be binding. Among the 20% of undecided voters, abstention will be a popular choice. Of the supporters of the parliament, a large proportion will realise that their best chance of thwarting Yeltsin's push for additional powers lies in staying at home on voting day.
It is thus quite probable that if the referendum were held tomorrow, a majority of potential voters would abstain. Is this situation likely to change in the period to April 11?
Here the pointers are all against Yeltsin. During the past few months the crisis of inter-enterprise payments, which last summer was relieved only by large, inflationary, credit emissions, has reappeared on a much greater scale.
The consequences of refusing another round of bail-outs were
exemplified on January 29 when the giant AZLK vehicle plant in Moscow, the producer of Moskvich passenger cars, shut down its main assembly line indefinitely. The shutdown was forced when engines ceased arriving from the Lizunov plant in Ufa, where production had been halted by a shortage of funds to pay for materials and parts. The engine plant's problems stem in part from the inability of AZLK to pay for engines already delivered.
The government's answer to the debt crunch is so ill judged as to be scarcely credible. Orthodox Western practice would dictate price and profit controls on monopoly producers, especially of raw materials and basic intermediate products, combined with emergency credits on strict terms to keep industry functioning. But instead, the government in late January was preparing another dose of neo-liberal "shock therapy".
According to the Moscow press, a draft economic program prepared by Vice-Premier Boris Fyodorov calls for a sharp reduction in subsidies to cash-strapped enterprises, including a cut in funds to bail out the coal industry.
This will not stop price rises — the near-disappearance of many goods as production collapses will see to that. More critically, many of the factories that will be forced to halt their operations are the sole producers in the former USSR of goods vital to a whole train of production. Few Russian enterprises have the hard currency needed to purchase inputs abroad, so the effect of Fyodorov's policies will be to shut down whole sectors of industry, including many enterprises that are efficient and potentially profitable.
How will this holocaust bear on the April 11 referendum? In the minds of potential voters, Yeltsin's fading charisma is unlikely to prevail over the laying off of millions of workers and the destruction of large parts of Russia's industrial might.
The failure of the referendum to return a valid result would usher in a political crisis to dwarf anything seen in recent times. At the next session of the Congress of People's Deputies, a constitutional amendment stripping the discredited president of all but figurehead powers would be likely to meet only feeble resistance.
To forestall such a move, Yeltsin might well try to carry out his threat of last year to step outside his constitutional powers and dissolve the congress. But a presidential coup would be resisted both by the Constitutional Court and by the military, and many of the constituent republics of the Russian Federation would respond with threats of secession.
How these and other political factors will work themselves out
cannot, of course, be predicted in detail. But it can safely be said that the fragile stability that has characterised Russian politics since the failed coup of August 1991 is coming to an end.