Elections could 1ead to political breakthrough
In Russta By Judith Ingram
Associated Press. Date: 22.11.99
MOSCOW (AP) Russia's sometimes chaotic parliament is one of the country's
loudest and cockiest political players. It's also toothless, backing off from fight after
fight with President Boris Yeltsin.
Now lawmakers have a change to change their weakling image. Voters
elect a new State Duma, the lawmaking chamber or parliament, on Dec. 19 in an election
that could transform the face of Russian politiks.
Analysts expect centrists to gain a stronger hand in the Duma, putting
pressure, on the Communist Party to leave aside ideological squabbling and compromise on
issues. At the. same time, Yeltsin will be in a weaker position as the last rew months or
his final term wind down .
These elections will lead to a political breakthrough, predict Nikolai
Petrov, a politica1 analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. After this election, the Duma
will become much more powerful in relation to the president. '
Yeltsin ensured the Duma would be weak by drawing up a constitution
that gives the president an overwhelming advantage the power to dissolve parliament at
will. But the charter also bars Yeltsin, who 1eaves office next summer, from dissolving
the Duma during his term's last six months.
Analysts also expect new faces to end the now Communist – dominaited
assembly's bitter intensely personal feuding with Yeltsin. With each side seemingly
motivated by the desire to humiliate the other, the poisonous relations erased practically
any possibility for the kind of compromise that makes parliamentary democracies effective.
The Communists may .still poll strongly next month pulling in about 20
percent of the vote, according to most analysts prediotions but their autority seems to
have been dented badly.
Their competition isn’t from their traditional enemies, the liberal,
pro market technocrats whose reputations have been battered by the flawed market reforms
and close ties to Yeltsin.
Rather, the Communists face a formidable challenge from the centrist
Fatherland-All Russia alliance neaded by threa influential regional leaders former Prime
Minister Yevgany Primakov, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and St.Petersburg Gov. Vladimir
Yakovlev. The new alliance is expected to eat into the Communists support, and could even
end up the biggest vote getter in the new Duma, analysts say. In essence, the Communist
Par'ty has lost its status as the main opposition force in the country, Sergei Markov,
director of the Center for Political Research, wrote recently in the newspaper
Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
Fatherland -All Russia and other centrist parties are expected to have
a much greater say in the new Duma and in Russian politics.
Parties are throwing big names into the parliamentary races to try to
boost their chances. The reform-oriented Yabloko party, led by economist Grigory
Yavlinsky, has brought on former Prime Minister Scrgei Stepashin, while Primakov is the
key attraction for Fatherland-Al1 Russia.
The- heavyweights' participation indicates how seriouslythepartiesare taking this vote. And it could increase the pressure on the Communists to tone
down their ideology and work with opponents.
“The next Duma will be more professional,” predicts Andrei
Biryukov, an analyst at the Nikkolo M political consulting center.
Not that the campaign will be lacking in colorful characters. Among the
flamboyant candidates are ulrranational1st Vladimir Shirinovsky, Alexander Karelin, a
three time Olympic wrestling champion; Yelena Mavrodi , wife of the head of a pyramid
investment scheme that collapsed in 1994, wiping out the life savings of thousands of
Russians; and Boris Berezovsky, a tycoon who enjoys close ties with the Kremlin and is at
the center of many alleged dark conspiracies.
With the constitution barring Yeltsin from dissolving the Duma in his
last six months, the new legislators are likely to use that time t0 draft a new
constitution that would lessen presidential powers, .says Petrov, the Carnegie analyst.
“Its evident to everybody that the main reason for instability is the
situation where it's possible for the president to change the prime minister anytime he
wants”, he says.