Presidency Created for Russian Republic : Soviet Union: Yeltsin is expected to win the powerful post in June elections, giving him great political legitimacy.

Russian lawmakers on Friday created a powerful new presidency for their giant republic, an office that radical populist Boris N. Yeltsin is expected to win in elections next month to become the first leader ever chosen directly by the Russian people.

The Russian Congress of People’s Deputies, a fractious body of more than 1,000 deputies that tried to remove Yeltsin from his current leadership position as its chairman just last March, approved the new presidency by an overwhelming 894-6 margin with 16 abstentions.

Yeltsin, by far the most popular leader in the Soviet Union, far surpassing President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in public opinion polls, hailed the measure’s passage as a “great victory.”

With the law on the Russian presidency now formally on the books and elections set for June 12, the race for the new post can begin in earnest.

The campaign promises to introduce Western-style whistle-stopping and slick political advertising to a country still more accustomed to mind-numbing speeches and Communist Party propaganda.

Yeltsin faces five opponents of very different stripes, from former Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov of the Communist Party mainstream to Col. Gen. Albert M. Makashov, a rightist who rails against “cosmopolitans,” and Vladimir Zhirinovksy, a wild card who is promising cheap, freely available vodka for the masses.

Asked Friday what he will do if he loses the presidential race, Yeltsin told reporters, “I will retire and go and dig in my garden.”

The barrel-chested Siberian is expected to take to the road Tuesday, seeking to cover a republic stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean and covering almost one-sixth of the Earth’s land mass.

If he wins, he will gain a level of political legitimacy that Gorbachev, who was elected by the Soviet Parliament, can only aspire to, and strengthen his position in his battle to assert Russia’s sovereignty against Kremlin claims.

In wrangling over the presidency law, Yeltsin’s camp lost to conservative Communists on two issues. His supporters had wanted the president to have the power to fire regional officials who fail to carry out reforms and to be required to give up membership in any party during his time in office.

Yeltsin acknowledged that “not everything we wanted has been adopted,” but added proudly, “Some people doubted we would finish it at all, given that we had 140 amendments to deal with.”

Col. Vladimir Seleznev, a Russian deputy, said in an interview that he thought the quick passage of the presidency law showed that the parliament’s myriad factions had finally reconciled themselves to the impossibility of bringing Yeltsin down.