Yeltsin Taps Steel Executive for Deputy Premier Post : Russia: Oleg Soskovets’ assignment strengthens industry’s voice at top level of government.

President Boris N. Yeltsin named a steel industry executive as a first deputy prime minister Friday, strengthening the voice of industrial managers at the top level of Russia’s government.

Oleg Soskovets, who will take charge of industrial policy, told the Interfax news agency he would tackle the job with “an understanding of the priorities of economic reforms and the need to impose clear order in the industrial sphere.”

Yeltsin, preoccupied with a political battle with Parliament over constitutional reform, has said his economic reforms will continue but that priority will be given to stabilizing the economy.

Some politicians and newspapers have suggested the remaining free-marketeers in the government may soon find themselves heavily outnumbered by former industrial managers less committed to change.

Like Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, Soskovets followed a classic career path in Soviet industry that suggests his approach is likely to be pragmatic rather than radical.

He was the second executive to be promoted to first deputy prime minister this month. The other was Oleg Lobov, a longtime Yeltsin associate with a reputation as a cautious reformer.

A senior presidential aide was quoted as saying Friday that Yeltsin is planning to set up a new council that could seize some lawmaking powers from Russia’s conservative Parliament.

The Itar-Tass news agency quoted Mikhail Poltoranin as telling the newspaper Argumenty i Fakty that Yeltsin would also push for removal of central bank chief Viktor Gerashchenko.

The Itar-Tass summary of the interview, released in advance of general publication, did not say what form the Federation Council would take. But it seemed likely to be a more powerful version of the present council, an assembly of regional leaders that currently plays a largely consultative role.

The Itar-Tass report said Yeltsin would sign a decree within a few days on setting up the new council.

Meanwhile, Yeltsin’s hard-line opponents, who say the president lost last Sunday’s referendum, protested Friday against a presidential ban on their marching through Red Square to mark May Day.

Leaders of the National Salvation Front, an alliance of Communists and Russian nationalists, described the ban as a violation of their rights and said they feared violence today.

Moscow trade unions have been granted permission to hold a parade on a different route one hour earlier.