Yeltsin Keeps A Lid On Constitution Delegates

June 06, 1993|By James P. Gallagher, Chicago Tribune.

KAZAN, Russia — Boris Yeltsin wants the hundreds of officials who gathered in Moscow this weekend to write a new Russian constitution that assigns most powers to the nation's chief executive and relegates the legislature to weak-sister status.

But the government of Tatarstan, one of 21 ethnic republics in the racially diverse Russian federation, has declared it will not sign on to any constitution that does not guarantee it special rights-in effect, full control over the province's economic life.

The leaders of Tatarstan, a predominantly Muslim area, also insist on a formal treaty with the federal government that would specify the limits of Moscow's authority over the oil-rich Central Russian province and its fewer than 4 million inhabitants.

"There can be no effective constitution unless the prerogatives of the ethnic republics are taken into account," insisted Ilgiz Khairullin, a deputy prime minister of Tatarstan. "The new constitution cannot simply mean the recreation of the Russian Empire on a smaller scale."

Yeltsin, who sees a new constitution as his best chance to rout his conservative foes in the parliament, might be tempted to strike a special deal with Tatarstan-if things only could be kept that simple.

In fact, they can't. Other ethnic areas, notably neighboring Bashkortostan, are ready to push for autonomy if Tatarstan gets its way.

Beyond that, officials in many ethnically Russian regions have served notice that they will not tolerate two classes of local political units. Whatever concessions the ethnic republics win, the authorities maintain, also must be awarded to the dozens of Russian regions.

"The republics and the regions must have equal rights," said Vladimir Chub, governor of the Rostov region, one of Russia's main grain-producing areas.

Chub made it clear that he is under tremendous pressure to win special economic privileges for the farmers in his region, and could not stand by idly while non-Russian republics received special treatment at the upcoming assembly.

"I feel the hot breath of the people on my back," he explained.

Regional officials in the Russian Far East also are feeling heat from business interests out there who want greater control over the burgeoning trade with Japan and South Korea.

"This process could go out of control and turn into a struggle between Moscow and the regions," warned Valeri Zubov, the pro-Yeltsin governor of the key Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia. "We don't want that to happen, but it could."

"The biggest danger for Yeltsin," a Western diplomat agreed, "will not come from his conservative opponents in Moscow. The biggest danger is that the hundreds of regional delegates will get out of hand and turn this thing into a no-holds-barred debate on the future of Russia."

Saturday's opening session in the Kremlin in Moscow featured angry protests from some delegates, but Yeltsin and his allies succeeded in keeping things under control.

After the president delivered a keynote address outlining the need for a new constitution, parliament speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov strode to the podium despite Yeltsin's objections.

He was prevented from speaking, however, when hundreds of delegates began clapping slowly, a sign of discontent and impatience in Russia. Khasbulatov then stalked out, threatening to find some way to thwart the assembly.

A Communist legislator, Yuri Slobodkin, was carried kicking and screaming out of the hall by security guards. Thousands of other Communists and right wing nationalists staged a protest march in downtown Moscow, accusing Yeltsin of trying to become a dictator.

Yeltsin dismissed Khasbulatov's action as a "provocation," and vowed the assembly would continue playing by his rules when it resumes work Monday.

Those rules call for delegates to break into separate committees chaired by Yeltsin supporters. Each committee is supposed to confine its attention to one aspect of the new constitution-using the president's proposed draft as the working document.

The parliament has written a rival proposal.

The delegates are to reconvene in plenary session June 16 to approve a final document. How it would become law is not clear.

That role is reserved for parliament under the existing Leonid Brezhnev-era constitution, but Yeltsin made it clear in his speech Saturday that he is prepared to bypass that body if necessary and submit the new constitution to the Russian people in a national referendum later this year.

About 700 people attended the assembly's opening session, including legal experts, members of the presidential apparatus and representatives of various political factions in parliament. That number strikes many observers as too bulky to permit swift, disciplined action.

Dozens of delegates walked out after Khasbulatov, and it was not immediately clear whether they would return Monday.

Each republic and region was to send two delegates to the assembly-the heads of the local executive and legislative bodies. But last week, Yeltsin insisted the number be raised to four per locale.

"I think Yeltsin made a big mistake," Zubov said. "I think he had things under control, but I'm not so sure now."