Yeltsin Tries to Rally Support for Constitution : Russia: Urging voters to approve his proposal, he defends draft giving the president more power.

President Boris N. Yeltsin on Tuesday urged voters across Russia to approve his proposal for the country’s first post-Soviet constitution, calling it “a powerful instrument for the solution of the most acute problems of our state and society.”

The draft, signed by Yeltsin on Monday and released to the public Tuesday, will come before the voters in a referendum Dec. 12, simultaneously with elections for Russia’s first post-Communist Parliament.

The draft closely parallels a version prepared by Yeltsin supporters at a constitutional convention last summer and is designed to supplant a much-amended document written to serve a monolithic, totalitarian Communist state.

In a nationally televised address Tuesday, Yeltsin argued that approval of his draft will allow future governments to avert the kind of political stalemate that led to an unprecedented violent confrontation between the president and the Parliament a month ago.

On Oct. 4, Yeltsin ordered army tanks to shell the Parliament building in Moscow, known as the White House, to drive the last remaining rightist Parliament members and their armed supporters from their refuge within. That followed his Sept. 21 decision to dissolve the Parliament, which had been confounding his reform program. More than 140 people died in Moscow in two days of fighting between the two sides.

“People ask: ‘Do we really need a new constitution? Can’t we manage with the old, patched-up one?’ ” Yeltsin said Tuesday. “Today it is clear that if a new constitution had been adopted on time, we would have been able to defend democracy without resorting to extreme measures. For the absence of a democratic constitution, we were forced to pay a high price.”

For the constitution to be adopted, under electoral rules, at least half of all eligible voters must cast ballots and 50% plus one of those voting must approve. If the draft fails at the polls, according to Alexander V. Ivanchenko, deputy chairman of the central electoral commission, adoption of the constitution will be the first order of business for the newly elected Parliament.

“If the voters adopt the constitution, it will be like a gift to the new Parliament,” he said. “The new deputies will be able to start constructive work right away instead of getting bogged down in contradictions with the president over the separation of powers and other constitutional issues.”

Yeltsin’s proposal significantly strengthens presidential powers at the expense of parliamentary authority. It establishes a number of rights denied Soviet citizens by the Communist regime and backed by Yeltsin’s reformist government, including the right to private ownership of property, business and, perhaps most important, land.

In one of the more politically sensitive provisions, the draft curbs the governmental status of the Russian Federation’s 22 ethnic republics by making them equal in status to its 67 regional jurisdictions.

The autonomy of those republics had been expanding as politicians in Moscow tried to curry support from their leaders during the long struggle between the president and the Parliament.

The republics’ growing independence in turn inspired regional leaders to demand more autonomy. Yeltsin, arguing that their accumulation of power at the expense of the central government threatened Russia’s territorial integrity, stripped the republics of most special powers in the draft.

The draft’s enhancement of presidential power reflects in part Yeltsin’s own difficulties with the most recent Parliament, which was elected in 1990 under Soviet rule and became increasingly identified with anti-reform sentiment until its dissolution by presidential order.

Under the draft provisions, the previous Congress of People’s Deputies would be replaced by a two-chamber Parliament, including a 450-member elected Duma, the lower house, and a 178-member Federation Council, both of which would sit for four-year terms. Half of the latter’s members would be appointed by legislatures of the 89 regions and ethnic republics, and half by those jurisdictions’ administrative heads, themselves largely answerable to the president.

At first, however, both houses would be elected to a two-year term.

The Russian president would become head of state along French lines; with parliamentary approval he would appoint a prime minister as head of the government. Together they would appoint ministers without parliamentary approval.

The president would serve up to two four-year terms, although Yeltsin would be permitted to serve out his five-year term, which ends in 1996.

The Duma could urge dismissal of the government by a no-confidence vote, but such a vote gives the president the choice of dismissing the government or dissolving the Duma, a clear disincentive to parliamentary criticism. The president may also dissolve the Duma if it rejects three of his or her nominees for prime minister. The president may not dissolve the Federation Council.

Under the previous constitution, the president had no authority to dissolve the Parliament, although Yeltsin asserted that right Sept. 21.

Voters may balk at the sharp expansion of presidential authority, some observers have speculated, and it is likely to be a lightning rod for the president’s opposition.

“This constitution, even if adopted, has no chances of being enforced,” said Gennady A. Zyuganov, head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. “What the whole campaign will achieve, however, is the establishment of presidential dictatorship, further destabilization in society and serious outbursts of violence throughout the country.”

Even the liberal newspaper Izvestia remarked in a front-page analysis that the president’s insistence on granting himself “the final word . . . downplays the role of the future Parliament (and) forces voters either to shun the election or vote against the draft constitution.”

Other political observers, however, argue that the absence of a constitution is a greater threat than the draft’s strong presidency.

“The draft has strong authoritarian parts,” said Valery D. Zorkin, the former chairman of the Constitutional Court and a tough Yeltsin critic. “But it’s better to have a bad constitution than no constitution. And if the people support this constitution in the referendum, then it’s better than to live in an authoritarian regime without a constitution or Parliament.”

Sergei Loiko of The Times’ Moscow Bureau also contributed to this report.

A New Set of Rules for Russia

Here are some of the key changes in the proposed Russian constitution:

* Individual rights: Russian citizens gain the right to own land, businesses and property, as well as the right to privacy and freedom from governmental repression.

* The presidency: Presidential powers are more clearly specified and strengthened. The president is head of state, with the authority to appoint a prime minister (with legislative approval), ministers and judges. The president is elected to no more than two four-year terms, although President Boris N. Yeltsin may serve out his own five-year term ending June, 1996.

* Parliament: The constitutional draft envisions a two-house legislature: a popularly elected Duma of 450 members and a more powerful 178-member upper house, the Federation Council. Half the council’s members will be appointed by legislatures of the 89 republics and regions and half by the localities’ executive authorities. Both houses will be elected to two-year terms at first; after that, members will have four-year terms.

* Separation of powers: The president gains the authority to dissolve Parliament, and Parliament’s ability to impeach the president is sharply reduced. The president may dissolve Parliament if it passes a no-confidence vote in the government--in which case the president may also dismiss the government--or if it rejects three of his or her nominees for prime minister.

To impeach the president, the Duma, on the initiative of one-third of its members, can press charges of treason or “other severe crimes”; then it must organize a commission to substantiate the charges, which must in turn be confirmed by the Supreme Court. Then the Federation Council must confirm the charges by a two-thirds vote; half of the council members, however, will be appointed by administrators answerable to the president.

Under the old rules, legislators could impeach the president on a two-thirds vote, with the approval of the Constitutional Court.

* Regions: The autonomy of Russia’s 22 ethnic republics is reduced. They retain the right to make their own languages official and to enact their own constitutions, but they can claim no “sovereign rights,” and in most cases their governmental status is made no more powerful than that of the 67 regional and local administrative units of the Russian Federation.

Source: Times Moscow Bureau