Gorbachev Promises Veto Powers to Supreme Soviet

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev told the Soviet Parliament today that it will gain the right to veto his decisions if it adopts his revised proposals to overhaul the Soviet political system.

In a speech opening a three-day special session of the Supreme Soviet, or Parliament, Gorbachev said the Kremlin leadership made the veto proposal among 88 changes it recommended in response to 250,000 public comments on the new election law and constitutional amendments put before the body today.

Two high republic officials from the Baltics, however, registered dissatisfaction with elements of the reform program when addressing the plenum, signaling the start of a genuine debate in the chamber where ritual assent is the norm.

Widespread Criticism

The original drafts, published just five weeks ago, sparked widespread criticism that the changes would concentrate too much power in the presidency in a nation with a history of dictatorship.

In a reference to the outcry, Gorbachev acknowledged, “It is obvious that some of the provisions of the bills were not formulated precisely enough and caused quite a few critical remarks in the course of the discussions.”

Reading today from a new draft, Gorbachev said the Supreme Soviet “has the right to veto decrees of the Presidium, instructions of the president of the Supreme Soviet,” and the leadership would be required to account to the legislature “at least once a year.”

Currently, directives from the president are made in the name of the Presidium and are subject to confirmation at the next full session of the Supreme Soviet. But practically, there are no challenges. The Supreme Soviet had its first non-unanimous vote in memory last month.

Gorbachev promised that other changes also would preserve the Soviet Union’s traditional collective style of leadership. Under that style, the highest government body, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, and the highest party body, the Politburo, are collective bodies. The head of the Presidium is the president, traditionally a ceremonial role.

It was not immediately clear whether Gorbachev was giving up his original proposal to strengthen the president’s role by giving him chairmanship of the Defense Council and responsibility for overseeing foreign policy.

Gorbachev proposed creating a special commission to settle the question of division of power between the 15 Soviet republics and the central government and suggested that the deputies limit this session to overhauling the government structure.

The latest draft of the proposed changes responded to complaints from small republics, including Estonia, Latvia and Georgia, by increasing the republics’ representation in one of the houses of the bicameral Parliament.

Vitautas Astrauskas, president of Lithuania, called for a convention to write a new constitution that would give the central government authority to decide issues of national scope and reserve all other matters for the republics.

Another Baltic president, Anatoly Gorbunov of Latvia, asked that the reform package be postponed to consider objections by his Parliament, including one to the possibility of an individual occupying several seats in the new Congress of People’s Deputies.