Bill to Expand Role of Russian Poll Watchers Voted Down

Russia’s upper house of parliament has defeated a move by both Communist and democratic foes of the government to expand the role of independent poll watchers, adding to a belief that fraud may decide the race for the presidency.

With the first round of voting a month away and President Boris N. Yeltsin locked in a close race with the Communist Party leader, the prospect of cheating has become an issue. Both sides warn that a cynical, polarized electorate could erupt in violence over disputed returns.

A rare alliance of Yeltsin’s Communist and reformist rivals backed a bill to increase the number and the powers of election observers. In April, they pushed it through the Duma, the lower house, over opposition from the party created by Yeltsin.

But the bill, which had been two years in the works, died Wednesday on a 104-30 vote by the Federation Council, which is made up of governors and other officials from Russia’s 89 regions, many of whom owe their jobs to the president. Few expect that the bill can be revived.

“This is a very grave threat to a normal and fair vote,” Viktor L. Sheinis, a leading reformer and sponsor of the bill, said Thursday. The current election law, he added, offers enough checks to make Russians “partially sure” of the official returns, but “this time we must be dead sure, or Russia may not survive.”

The bill was opposed by the Central Election Commission, run by a loyal Yeltsin appointee. It has overseen two parliamentary elections, in 1993 and 1995, under a law allowing each party to post one observer at every polling place, along with observers of accredited foreign organizations.

Yeltsin’s Communist and nationalist opponents led the field in both votes, and neither result was seriously challenged as fraudulent. But enough irregularities were noted to warrant concern that, in a close election with the presidency at stake, rigging could be decisive.

The most suspicious outcome was that of a constitutional referendum on the 1993 ballot. Independent analyses suggest that the turnout figure was fudged upward to top 50%--the minimum required to validate the “yes” vote on a new charter that expanded the president’s powers.

A prediction now heard often is that Yeltsin will lean on local bosses, especially in rural areas where fewer observers are watching, to falsify a small percentage of the returns they report to Moscow--just enough to clear the way for a two-man runoff and victory in the runoff itself.

Gennady A. Zyuganov, the Communist leader expected to face Yeltsin in the runoff, warns of this scenario in his campaign speeches, and it has gained credibility with private remarks by some Yeltsin aides that fixing the election would be easier than calling it off.

The Communists are the only party in the 11-man race capable of fielding poll watchers in most precincts. They backed the bill in the Duma because they don’t want to be alone in denouncing a pro-Yeltsin fix.

The bill aimed to expand scrutiny of the vote by allowing any local voter who could gather 10 signatures to become a “citizen observer” with the right to stay in his or her polling place after it closes and watch everything.

More important, the bill called for an independent multi-party commission to hold recounts in a few precincts in each region and compare the numbers to official returns. In the event of major discrepancies, a full recount would be ordered in that region.

Lawmakers in the upper house argued that the new guarantees would cost too much money and flood polling stations with too many onlookers, causing chaos that might disrupt the vote.