Next Step : Yeltsin Versus Lawmakers, Round 2 : Russia’s president could well wind up with a Parliament he likes less than the one he dissolved in September. But mounting a challenge to him will take time.

It was Election Day at the Krasnovardevski School, and when U.S. Sen. John McCain came soliciting opinions, the Communist Party poll watcher had plenty to go around.

“The term ‘shock therapy’ is offensive to a human being,” said Yevgeni I. Korver. Seeing that McCain, an Arizona Republican leading a team of election observers, was listening politely, Korver moved a step closer and let fly.

“Who gave them the right to give me a shock?” Korver said. “I want to work and decide for myself how to live. . . . Only 5% to 10% of the population are benefiting from reforms. The rest are getting poorer.”

The next day, McCain was announcing to reporters that the Russian vote had been fair. But the results nearly flattened Yegor T. Gaidar, Yeltsin’s chief economic guru and the architect of the unpopular “shock therapy” reforms.

From the U.S. standpoint, the results are not encouraging. Not only will President Boris N. Yeltsin not have a democratic majority in Parliament--he may wind up with a new legislature that he likes less than the one he dissolved in September.

The new constitution Yeltsin himself designed will surely make it easier to control Parliament. But now that hard-line lawmakers have been legitimately elected, Yeltsin will find it much harder to get rid of them.

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Preliminary election results point to a Parliament as ideologically diverse and divisive as Russia herself. At least three fractious democratic parties, including Gaidar’s, will face off against the Communists and the radical nationalists led by Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky.

Until he beat Gaidar with a stunning 20% of the vote, Zhirinovsky had been dismissed as a fringe neo-fascist.

He has called America “the Evil Empire,” promised the former Soviet republics that one day Russia will rule them again and said he looks forward to the day when Russia has a joint border with Germany. Most Russians thought him a buffoon--except those to whom “shock therapy” was administered without anesthetic.

By Monday, Zhirinovsky was announcing that he was ready to supply ministers to Yeltsin’s Cabinet. Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly B. Chubais said that if the government tries to live up to any of the many promises Zhirinovsky made on the campaign trail, “there will be World War III.”

Equally troublesome are feuds among the democrats, who blamed their own bickering for the setback.

Kremlin rumor has it that Deputy Prime Minister Sergei M. Shakhrai will be sacked for disloyalty if his party fails to muster the 5% vote needed to qualify for Parliament. And will the two most powerful democratic leaders, Gaidar and rival free-market economist Grigory A. Yavlinsky, cooperate to balance the new Parliament’s revanchist forces? Or will they polarize progressive lawmakers?

Many think Yeltsin will simply dissolve the new Parliament if it fails to do his bidding.

“Yeltsin’s past experience does not show a lot of skill in working with Parliament,” said Andrei V. Kortunov of the USA and Canada Institute in Moscow. “This guy is not ready to share power.”

In fact, both the authoritarian new constitution and some shrewd bureaucratic maneuvers by Yeltsin have ensured that the newly elected lawmakers would need months, if not a year, before they could organize a serious challenge to him.

First, the new Parliament will have to play by brand-new rules. Each chamber must elect a leader, appoint committees, arrange office space and adopt parliamentary procedures that could differ from those of its Soviet-era predecessor.

Second, the two chambers will be both physically and politically isolated. In an unsubtle move aimed at keeping parliamentary opposition from coalescing, Yeltsin has decreed that the State Duma, or lower house of 450 members, and the Federation Council, or upper house of 176 members, will meet in separate buildings. The White House, whose mammoth dimensions and symbolic importance made it a counterweight to the Kremlin, will be used for government office space.

Finally, Yeltsin has placed the Parliament purse strings under presidential lock and key.

Ruslan I. Khasbulatov, the chairman of the former Supreme Soviet who now awaits trial for treason in a onetime KGB prison, made masterful use of his power to dole out cars, apartments, dachas and trips abroad to control his People’s Deputies.

Now the apparatus that controls perquisites for parliamentarians has been placed under the control of the presidential apparatus.

Nevertheless, each chamber will eventually probe the limits of its constitutional powers--and find them feeble.

Yeltsin has the right to dissolve the Duma if it rejects his choice for prime minister three times, or if it votes no confidence in his Cabinet twice--but not during the Duma’s first year.

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Analysts say Yeltsin will use that time to try to fast-forward reforms, while the new parties will try to develop their constituencies.

Yeltsin has another public relations problem: When he dissolved the Supreme Soviet, he promised to hold presidential elections in June. Later, he demurred, saying the Parliament could decide.

Now, the president cannot hold elections in June lest Zhirinovsky win. But if he lets Parliament decide, Zhirinovsky’s faction may demand an early contest.

Meanwhile, the question of Yeltsin’s health, a topic of endless rumor and speculation, becomes ever more critical.

Is the president fit enough to serve out his term, which ends in June, 1996? From time to time, Yeltsin seems to lumber, has labored breathing and appears to be drunk. The president himself says he does drink but never becomes drunk. And the Kremlin acknowledges that Yeltsin’s bad back sometimes troubles him.

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U.S. officials, who have long been watching for signs of serious illness or psychological instability, say Yeltsin may take painkillers when his back troubles him. They say the Siberian is a heavy drinker, occasionally a binge drinker, but seems to have his drinking under control.

U.S. officials also say they have heard but cannot confirm rumors that Yeltsin suffers from depression--which could explain his periodic absences from public life--or other serious ailments.

If Yeltsin was to fall ill or die, the new constitution says the prime minister would take over until new elections could be held in three months.

If that were to happen today, said political analyst Alexander M. Pikayev, Zhirinovsky would likely be the next Russian president.

“Yeltsin is now the only guarantor of further democratic reform here,” Pikayev said.

Times Staff Writer Doyle McManus, in Washington, contributed to this report.

BORIS CAP