Russia’s New Parliament Off to a Wild Start

The wild scrum around ultranationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky trashed the cloakroom. An accused coup plotter was proposed as Speaker. And goggle-eyed deputies, appalled at the new levels of legal chaos, compared their new forum to a psychiatric ward.

But all in all, Russia’s second attempt in recent history to launch a parliamentary democracy got off to a tolerable start Tuesday as its new lawmakers, elected last month in the country’s first true multi-party balloting, opened their first session.

“For the first time ever, Russia has achieved accord on the rules and norms that are a must for all political forces,” President Boris N. Yeltsin told deputies. “We must preserve this for the sake of national peace and to make sure dictatorship never returns to Russia.”

In the Duma--the lower, 450-seat chamber expected to be the feistier--the first key vote brought good news for Yeltsin, indicating that although his opponents appear to hold a majority, they may not be able to make it work. Nationalist and Communist groups failed to ram through a procedural move on the minimal size of factions and were forced to compromise with Yeltsin backers.

Deputies have a strong incentive to accommodate Yeltsin. The building where the Duma met is still missing windows, blown out in the battle over the Russian White House that raged last fall. Yeltsin dissolved Parliament in September and routed his armed opposition in early October with troops and tanks.

Mikhail Poltaranin, a close Yeltsin adviser, half-joked that at one point in the Duma session, he wanted to warn deputies that if they didn’t shape up, the division that backed Yeltsin still had plenty of tanks and shells left.

But overall, Poltaranin was cheered by signs that the new opposition will be weaker than it had appeared: “We didn’t lose and we didn’t win so the day is ours,” he said.

Lawmakers faced another specter designed to keep them in shape. Dapper in a dark, German-made suit and alligator belt, Zhirinovsky threatened to dominate the session, even going so far as to make hand signals to the acting Speaker on how to put questions to the vote.

Flanked by bodyguards, he created a rash of his now-familiar loudmouth scandals, beginning with the chaotic rush of cameramen that greeted his entrance, knocking over tables and coatracks in the cloakroom. A neo-fascist who advocates Russian military expansion southward and a one-party dictatorship, Zhirinovsky shocked the world by winning nearly a quarter of the Russian vote among party lists in Dec. 12 elections.

During the lunch break, he took swipes at Western leaders who have refused to meet him. He said it was “very strange” of President Clinton, who plans to snub him during this week’s Moscow summit, to refuse to see a leading Russian opposition figure such as himself. Commenting on French President Francois Mitterrand’s proposals for intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Zhirinovsky said that “in his dotage, he has gone crazy.”

More worrisome, however, were Zhirinovsky’s open attempts to control the Duma through its chairman, Georgy Lukava, a civil aviation official and member of Zhirinovsky’s misleadingly named Liberal Democratic Party. As the oldest member of the Duma, Lukava, 69, was given the privilege of opening the session. But then, instead of passing his chairmanship on to an elected Speaker, he turned the discussion in other directions.

Lukava--who wore a pilot’s uniform adorned with medals and who displayed a Soviet-era habit of calling deputies “comrades”--kept his head cocked toward Zhirinovsky, who sent Lukava signals like a third-base coach on when to cut off a discussion and when to continue it.

When calls mounted for a new Speaker, Zhirinovsky snarled that Lukava would remain until a permanent Speaker was elected and ordered him to shut off the hall’s microphones. Deputies finally grew so incensed that they boycotted all voting--thus paralyzing the Duma--to demand Lukava be replaced.

The boycott succeeded--another victory for pro-Yeltsin deputies and a sign that they will not be as outnumbered as they had feared, and might even seek to control about half of the Duma. When Dec. 12 voting results first came in, it had appeared that reformists could only count on a quarter to a third of lawmakers. But many independents apparently voted with them Tuesday.

But Yeltsin allies hoping to push ahead with reforms also must cope with a Parliament thrown back to square one on rules of order. Yeltsin scrapped parliamentary guidelines developed over recent years, leaving deputies with little more than the new constitution and guesswork on how to run sessions.

“There are no documents but the constitution, that’s why it’s all I carry around with me,” said Andrei Goltsblatt, a legal staffer at the Duma. “There are no written rules, no procedures. All you can do is try to interpret the constitution.

“With the lack of rules, the Parliament can be turned into Zhirinovsky’s zombie,” he said. “He tells them how to vote and they do it.”

Zhirinovsky lost in his attempt to keep Lukava as Speaker, but the chaos did seem to be reaching alarming levels, with prolonged disputes over everything from the majority needed for a vote to pass to when to take a break.

Andrei Makarov, of the pro-Yeltsin Russia’s Choice bloc, walked out at the day’s end with a tortured look in his eyes and would say only, “Psychiatric clinics have visiting days too.” He added that a fellow Russia’s Choice member who is a psychiatrist was best suited for the deputy’s job. Several of his colleagues also compared the Duma to a mental hospital.

The circus atmosphere reached a climax in the late afternoon when Lukava proposed that he give up the chairmanship to Anatoly I. Lukyanov, the former chairman of the Soviet Parliament who is now on trial for his alleged role in the August, 1991, coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Lukyanov is a Duma deputy, as are such colorful figures as reactionary TV journalist Alexander Nevzorov, psychic healer Anatoly Kashpirovsky and weightlifting champion Yuri Vlasov.

The upper chamber, the 178-seat Federation Council, roughly equivalent to the U.S. Senate, lived up to expectations that it would be more staid--and more efficient--than the Duma.

The council, meeting in quarters about a mile from the Duma’s, whipped through technical questions and had begun voting on its new Speaker by Tuesday evening, with one of Yeltsin’s allies, First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir F. Shumeiko, the front-runner.

The new Parliament met under a new state symbol--the two-headed eagle--and with a new name, the Federal Assembly. It has far fewer powers than its predecessor, which could change the constitution easily and ended up blocking many of Yeltsin’s attempts to move away from communism and toward private property and a market-driven economy.

Under the new constitution, Yeltsin has the right to dissolve the Duma under certain circumstances and work only with the Federation Council.