Parliament Acts to Limit Yeltsin : Russia: Lawmakers vote to revoke his power to rule by decree once a new government is installed. Aides see a threat to his program of economic reforms.

The Russian Parliament voted Saturday to limit President Boris N. Yeltsin’s tenure as the country’s prime minister to a further three months and to revoke his powers to rule by decree once a new, full-fledged government is installed.

Although Yeltsin himself had agreed to such a compromise with his critics in the Congress of People’s Deputies, his aides sought quietly on Saturday to retain his sweeping powers until the end of the year, contending that the country’s radical economic reforms require this.

But the deputies, asserting Parliament’s ultimate authority under the present constitution, voted to allow Yeltsin to remain as prime minister, as well as president, for only three more months and then to make the new government responsible to the country’s legislature.

That resolution was angrily denounced by Yegor T. Gaidar, first deputy prime minister and the government’s chief economic strategist. “To put it bluntly, the decision completely revises the course of economic reform,” Gaidar said. “It is, in fact, a forced change of the whole direction.”

Congress’ successive votes, coming Saturday afternoon amid debate on 120 pages of 311 amendments to the original four-page resolution on the government’s policies, could prove pivotal in testing Yeltsin’s political strength against that of the more conservative Congress and in defining the balance of power in Russia’s still-emerging governmental system.

With Yeltsin absent from his normal perch above the Congress’ presiding officers, the deputies voted, 683 to 123 with 23 abstentions, to bring the Cabinet back under parliamentary control through a measure that will define the relationship between the legislature and the government ministers.

Under the resolution, Yeltsin would have to nominate a new prime minister by mid-July, and the prime minister, in turn, would have to pick a Cabinet. All the new ministers would be obliged to win legislative confirmation after outlining their proposed policies. Yeltsin’s powers as president would remain unchanged.

Yeltsin’s present ministers made clear their doubts that they could win legislative approval for their radical reforms and talked instead of resigning en masse, of calling a national referendum to endorse their policies, of “going to the people.”

“This is the death of any hopes of serious cooperation with the outside world in healing our economy,” said economic strategist Gaidar. “If you try seriously to put into effect what the Congress agreed . . . you must understand that this is the road to the collapse of the financial system.”

Gaidar, apparently convinced that fundamental reforms can be introduced only through decree and never democratically, has argued that unless Yeltsin keeps his now-unchallengeable powers to implement radical, free-market measures, the whole reform effort will fail.

“In this web of minor corrections, compromises and populist decisions . . . you get a volte-face, a halt to the reforms,” he said. “This government is not prepared to implement such a volte-face.”

The deputies Saturday had voted, 492 to 313 with 64 abstentions, to approve Yeltsin’s economic program, but this fell short of an absolute majority of the 1,046 deputies registered and thus left the president politically vulnerable.

In another setback for Yeltsin, the deputies recommended that he abolish his network of handpicked local administrators across the country. He began to appoint the officials last year to implement his reforms and circumvent local governments still controlled by former Communist Party officials.

But the confusion was such on Saturday and the conflicting amendments so numerous that Ruslan Khasbulatov, the Congress chairman, refused to sign the resolution until he had “a clean and verified text” on Monday.

Khasbulatov nevertheless hailed the decision. “This is the maximum possible compromise--it is a success for the president and for the Congress,” he declared.

Nikolai N. Vorontsov, a liberal deputy and member of Democratic Russia, a pro-Yeltsin coalition, said that Yeltsin indeed had broad backing within the legislature but that many of the president’s supporters had taken the afternoon off while conservatives remained in force and outmaneuvered him.

“There is no tragedy but just an uncomfortable situation,” Vorontsov said, adding that Democratic Russia had decided in an evening review of the situation that it was “bad but not catastrophic.”

Yeltsin’s ministers, shocked first by the criticism in Parliament and then by its vote to trim the president’s powers, mingled with a few hundred supporters on Red Square, an almost unprecedented gathering in Russia, and talked of “going to the people” if Yeltsin could not reverse the decision.

The underlying issues will be debated further this week when the Congress takes up rival drafts of a new constitution for Russia. Both a presidential and a parliamentary system of government are under consideration along with proposals to combine the two.

But the mood Saturday was not anti-Yeltsin or anti-reform, in contrast to earlier days, as much as it was pro-Parliament, with the deputies, elected two years ago in the first, heady days of Russian democracy, wanting a greater role in shaping national policies.

The Cabinet is expected to meet today, either under Gaidar or possibly Yeltsin himself as prime minister, to decide whether to remain in office or to resign, as threatened, because of the curtailment of Yeltsin’s powers.

“The Congress has clearly demonstrated its position--it prefers to strengthen legislative powers and limit the powers of the president,” Russian Television said in a political commentary Saturday evening.

“The question is what the answer of Boris Yeltsin will be. He may choose not to dramatize the situation. But he might also use his powers to appeal directly to the people for a new mandate of trust.”

Yeltsin aides said they are considering a referendum June 12, either to approve a new constitution granting the president the powers he seeks or asking voters whether they approve of the president or Parliament--a kind of no-confidence vote.

Russia’s current constitution bars the president from disbanding Parliament and calling elections but allows him to schedule referendums on any issue. A referendum could be called by gathering a million signatures, and the Democratic Russia coalition, which has branches across the country, has already said it is prepared to collect them.

Galina Starovoitova, one of Yeltsin’s senior political advisers, described the conflict between Yeltsin and the deputies as “very alarming” and the resolution adopted Saturday as a threat to the reformist government that he heads as prime minister.

“The reforms are literally hanging by a thread,” Starovoitova said after a prolonged debate that focused first on the government’s policies, particularly the sharp price increases introduced by Gaidar in January, and then on the alleged arrogance of Yeltsin’s young and iconoclastic ministers, particularly Gaidar.

“But what a great historical chance the country has!” Starovoitova continued. “At long last, all the civilized world realizes that we need help because in the long run they are endangered by the chaos once this government resigns. Those who demand its resignation are simply irresponsible people, not ready to shoulder the reforms.”

Alexander Shokhin, a deputy prime minister, said the resolution, by putting Yeltsin’s authority in question, had jeopardized the $24-billion Western aid package supporting the free-market reforms.

“Our Western partners are sensible people and they understand that in such political situation, under such political pressure on the reforming government, those reforms are difficult, if not impossible to carry out,” Shokhin told reporters.

“We want to analyze all amendments to show their absurdity. Some of them contradict each other, others are impossible to fulfill. We want to appeal to the Congress to reconsider some of the decisions.”