NEWS ANALYSIS : Constitution Vulnerable After Tepid Turnout

Accept a constitution that gives the president nearly unchecked powers, and risk dictatorship at the Kremlin’s whim.

Or reject it, leave Russia without a political rule book in a time of deep strife, and risk civil war.

Faced with these seemingly dreadful choices about President Boris N. Yeltsin’s new draft constitution, nearly half of Russia’s voters stayed home Sunday.

But by this morning, election commission officials said unofficially that 55% of registered voters had gone to the polls--just enough to validate a new constitution for the post-Communist era.

Yeltsin had promised his countrymen that a “yes” vote on the new constitution would sweep away the legal vestiges of the Soviet Union.

The new blueprint grants Russia’s 149 million citizens civil liberties and economic freedoms stifled during 70 years of Bolshevik rule--including the right to own land, the right to travel freely at home and abroad and the right not to be wiretapped.

This vision was triumphant among those voters who braved confusion, cynicism and bitter weather to tromp to the polls. Exit polls showed that about 60% of those who voted approved the constitution. Official returns will not be published for 10 days.

The less-than-overwhelming endorsement makes the constitution vulnerable to attack. Lawmakers elected to a new Parliament Sunday may spend much of their time trying to amend it.

Even some of Yeltsin’s staunchest allies, such as human rights crusader Sergei A. Kovalev, have said the draft constitution is flawed. Some who would amend it will undoubtedly argue that even voters who feel comfortable giving wide-ranging powers to Yeltsin may rue their decision if the next occupant of the Kremlin is less popular or more power-hungry.

Lawmakers will find that the constitution as written is deliberately difficult to amend. And the wildly diverse new Parliament is unlikely to agree on changes anytime soon.

“It’s clear to everyone that the constitution is just an interim document,” said Andrei V. Kortunov of Moscow’s USA-Canada Institute. “It’s not designed for years or decades or centuries. It has to be revised, and it will be revised, but the mechanism for revising it is very cumbersome.”

Yeltsin clearly hopes so. In a last-minute appeal to voters broadcast Thursday on nationwide television, the president promised that a vote for the constitution would end the relentless jockeying for political power that has characterized the post-Communist era.

Only the stability of a constitution that imposes a clear set of political rules--and the strong leader Russia is accustomed to--will enable the nation to break its political gridlock and get on with reforming its gutted economy, fighting crime and corruption and democratizing its institutions, the president said.

“The future of peace and tranquillity in Russia depends on your decision,” Yeltsin said. “In early October . . . civil war was not just knocking on our doors, it was entering our house. . . . Until the new constitution is adopted, such a threat will hang over the country.”

Voters who supported the draft agreed with Yeltsin that Russia cannot race ahead toward reforms while shackled by a Soviet constitution adopted under Leonid I. Brezhnev in 1977.

“What is bad in it can be corrected later,” said Pavel V. Sidorenko, a 51-year-old doctor. “I am for a presidential-type republic. Our great country needs a firm and strong hand to rule it.”

The old constitution explicitly states that power resides with the soviets, or councils. The new one, drafted by commissions handpicked by Yeltsin and then rewritten by Yeltsin’s staff in October, unabashedly vests more power in the president.

The president is commander in chief of the armed forces, according to the new constitution, and has primary responsibility for formulating domestic and foreign policy.

He appoints a prime minister and a chairman of the Central Bank, with the approval of the lower house of Parliament, or Duma. Government ministers are jointly appointed by the president and prime minister; unlike U.S. Cabinet members, they need not be confirmed by the legislature.

Russia’s upper house of Parliament, the Federation Council, must approve the president’s choices for prosecutor general and judges on the nation’s three highest courts. If the president declares martial law or a state of emergency, the upper house must also approve. Courts are to resolve any disputes.

Any of the branches of government may introduce legislation. If the president vetoes it, Parliament can override him with a two-thirds vote in both houses.

Unlike the old constitution, which anti-Yeltsin lawmakers amended to make it simple to impeach a president, the new document allows impeachment only when the Constitutional Court convicts the president of a serious crime such as treason. Even then, the ruling must be approved by a two-thirds vote in each chamber of Parliament.

Most controversial of all are provisions that allow the president to dissolve the Duma if it rejects his choice for prime minister three times, or if it twice votes “no confidence” in the government.

“Imagine Clinton dissolving Congress when it does not approve his Cabinet and Supreme Court nominees,” fumed Melor Sturua, a Russian political columnist, in a recent article. “This draft is like Dristan--it does not cure dictatorship, it just relieves the symptoms.”

However, little-publicized sections of the document state that the president cannot dissolve the Duma for rejecting nominees or voting no-confidence during the first year after its election.

Nor can the president dissolve the Duma while impeachment proceedings are pending, while martial law is in effect, or within six months of the end of the president’s term.

In the future, both lawmakers and the president will be elected for four-year terms. However, an addendum to the constitution states that the first Duma will serve only two years.

A defeat for the constitution would have been a devastating vote of no confidence in Yeltsin.

But the charter’s success gives Russia’s first democratically elected president a chance to show he can share power with an equally legitimate Parliament.