By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — To the puzzlement of many observers, Russian President Boris Yeltsin during the first weeks after his April 25 referendum held off introducing the "tough measures" through which he had promised to "neutralise" the country's parliament and clear the way for an unimpeded rush to capitalism.
But on May 12 the "phony war" period came to an end. After meeting the previous day with regional leaders, Yeltsin signed a decree ordering a special assembly to convene on June 5 and adopt a new constitution.
This decree is clearly illegal, and is highly likely to cause another drawn-out political crisis. Even more menacing than this prospect is the draft document with which the president hopes to replace the current constitution. Since it was released at the end of April, Yeltsin's draft has drawn stinging condemnation as a blueprint for elective autocracy.
In a May 6 television address Yeltsin claimed a mandate to purge opponents of radical change from his government and from local administrative bodies.
On May 11 he announced the transfer "to other duties" of two members of his cabinet, including Yuri Skokov, the powerful secretary of the Security Council. Once counted among the president's closest allies, Skokov balked during March at supporting Yeltsin's attempt to go outside the constitution to introduce "special rule".
Also on May 11, the president met in the Kremlin with leaders of almost all of Russia's 88 republics, provinces and autonomous regions, calling on them to nominate delegates to a constituent assembly. Once a new constitution was in place, Yeltsin indicated, he wanted elections for a new parliament no later than autumn.
In setting the June 5 date for the opening of the constituent assembly, the president made clear he did not expect the body to dwell at length on its tasks, or to consider drafts other than his own. The assembly was given just five days to approve a new "basic law".
The major obstacle Yeltsin faces is that his plans openly violate the existing constitution, under which the only body able to adopt a new basic law is the full parliament, the Congress of People's Deputies. In legal terms the constituent assembly will be a strictly informal gathering, whose resolutions will have no binding effect.
At a certain point, Russia's Constitutional Court is likely to have to rule on the legality of the president's actions — and the stage will be set for another constitutional and political showdown of the type in which Yeltsin narrowly survived an impeachment vote by the congress in late March. With the law on its side, the Russian parliament has tried to outflank the president by making its own proposals for constitutional reform. This activity has centred on the Constitutional Commission, the body which has long been charged with preparing a new draft, and of which Yeltsin is still technically the chairperson. The commission completed a draft for a new constitution last year, but the congress has not adopted it — largely because the deputies have been reluctant to cut short their terms, which would otherwise run until 1995.
On May 7 the Constitutional Commission met to consider Yeltsin's draft, and decisively rejected it. According to the English-language Moscow Tribune, the commission's secretary, Social Democrat leader and former Yeltsin supporter Oleg Rumyantsev "attacked Yeltsin's blueprint as authoritarian and a threat to Russian statehood. He said it would give the President the autocratic powers of a Russian Tsar and set up a 'shadow centre of power' comparable to the Politburo of the former Communist Party."
Parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov called on the legislatures in the republics and regions to consider the commission's draft by June 1, and Rumyantsev suggested that the congress might be convened in October or November to adopt a new constitution.
Political commentators are now predicting that the country's constitutional fate will be decided in the provinces. Whether or not this is true — the critical factor might well be the attitude of the armed forces general staff — the response of provincial leaders to the appeals of the two sides will obviously be vital in deciding how the conflict evolves during the next few weeks.
In general, Russia's provincial elites are much more attuned to the parliament than to the president; many local power brokers are themselves members of the Congress of People's Deputies. Jealous of their prerogatives, such people are likely to be wary of the highly concentrated presidential authority Yeltsin is claiming. According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, most of the leaders of the republican legislatures have already indicated that they prefer a "constitutional course" for the adoption of a new basic law.
However, it is far from clear that the legislative rather than the executive organs will decide who should be sent as delegates to the constituent assembly. Many of the executive heads of Russian provinces are unelected Yeltsin appointees. In these circumstances, the battle in the constituent assembly is likely to be tight, and to be decided by the concrete inducements that each side offers.
Already, there are signs of a political auction developing, with the president and parliament trying to outbid one another in their offers of autonomy and economic handouts. The English-language Moscow Times reported that Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin on May 7 offered a financial carrot to regional administrations that "supported reforms".
The president's side is handicapped, however, by a conception of federalism that is much less favourable to the ethnically Russian provinces than to the non-Russian republics — which are hostile to Yeltsin. This imbalance is written into the president's draft constitution through the inclusion in it of three federation agreements, negotiated last year but not yet implemented. Sentiment in the provinces, meanwhile, is in favour of upgrading local rights to match those of the republics.
Around half of the delegates will also be conscious that their local populations voted against Yeltsin in the referendum, at least on the question of confidence in his economic and social policies.
All this guarantees that debate at the assembly will be fierce, and the political horse-trading desperate and sordid. Whatever the formal result, the real victors will be the republics and regions, whose independence will be enhanced while the fight for the diminishing power of the centre will not be settled.