Lawmakers Postpone Impeachment Vote on Yeltsin

Russia’s unruly lower house of parliament indefinitely postponed an impeachment vote against Boris N. Yeltsin on Monday, losing a murky game of political brinkmanship with the erratic and imperious president.

The lower house, or Duma, had been scheduled to vote Thursday on five articles of impeachment accusing Yeltsin of crimes including launching a bloody war in Chechnya and spurring the collapse of the Soviet Union.

While the impeachment drive had little chance of actually unseating Yeltsin, the president clearly resented it. In recent days, Yeltsin signaled that he might retaliate with drastic countermeasures, such as firing his popular prime minister, Yevgeny M. Primakov.

The decision to postpone the vote reflects the opposition’s “obvious fear of failure,” said presidential spokesman Dmitri D. Yakushkin.

The outcome shows that Yeltsin remains a powerful political force in Russia even though his authority has suffered as his health declined and Primakov’s popularity climbed.

Yeltsin’s victory was not a complete one, however, since the articles of impeachment will remain officially on the Duma’s agenda. They cannot be canceled unless all 258 of the lawmakers who signed the petition initiating the procedure withdraw their signatures. Yeltsin’s winning gambit appears to have been his threat to dismiss Primakov, who perhaps alone among Russian politicians enjoys broad support.

On Friday, Yeltsin himself had sent a signal about Primakov’s future, saying the prime minister was “useful at this stage, but we’ll have to see about the future.” Over the weekend, the Novaya Gazeta weekly published a story citing unidentified Kremlin officials as saying that Yeltsin had already prepared an order to dismiss Primakov.

Primakov, who took office in September as a compromise candidate, has sought to end the country’s paralyzing political battles by appointing officials from all major factions to his Cabinet, including Communists.

The Communist Party, parliament’s largest faction, was faced with the possibility that pressing ahead with impeachment would cost it Primakov and its Cabinet posts, and restart a cycle of confrontation in which the constitution would give Yeltsin the upper hand.

In fact, the constitution is so weighted in favor of the president that it makes impeachment practically impossible: The Duma must first pass the motion with a two-thirds vote. Then the bill must be approved by the country’s two highest courts, the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court, both of which are appointed by the president. Finally, parliament’s upper house, the Federation Council--composed mostly of governors who also tend to support Yeltsin--must pass the impeachment motion by a two-thirds majority.

Analysts had predicted that even the most popular article of impeachment, censuring Yeltsin for going to war in Chechnya, would fall short of a two-thirds vote in the Duma.

“We shouldn’t mistake his physical feebleness for political feebleness. If his physical weakness is obvious, the president’s political powers, granted by the constitution, remain broad,” said Oleg Morozov, head of the Russia’s Regions faction, which favors impeachment.

Morozov criticized the decision to make the postponement indefinite instead of setting a new date for the vote, calling it a misguided attempt to keep the threat of impeachment dangling over the president.