Hands Up You Democrats

All right, Russian political leaders -- all you deputies, ministers, regional bosses, Kremlinites -- let's have a show of hands. How many of you plan to come out with a scathing denunciation of Federation Council speaker Vladimir Shumeiko's proposal to extend the powers of the president and parliament for two years on grounds that it is undemocratic and anticonstitutional?


Good. Now, how many of you can truthfully say that you have never secretly harbored the notion that postponing the scheduled 1996 elections might not be such a bad idea? Leaders? Leaders??


Shumeiko's modest proposal did not come as a bolt from the blue, nor is he the author of the idea. Nor should we take at face value the statement by Boris Yeltsin's Chief of Staff, Sergei Filatov, who insisted that the president was against the idea.


At least one other high-ranking official with a view to the Kremlin has spoken of how there are a number of such proposals being prepared in the Yeltsin administration. As early as this spring, these were at the planning stages, and ranged from the two-year moratorium on elections publicized by Shumeiko to a version that would extend Yeltsin's rule into the next century.


Of course, there is no certainty that any of these proposals would win the two-thirds majority in the State Duma to make them amendments to the constitution. Two of the lower house's largest factions, the Communists and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democrats, truly believe they will win the next elections and would likely block the vote. But they are just about the only people in Russia, other than perhaps Alexander Rutskoi and Grigory Yavlinsky, who are looking forward to the next polls. Many other Duma deputies agree with their speaker, Ivan Rybkin, who reacted to Shumeiko's proposal by saying that Russians, who have been to the polls five times since 1991, were "tired of the election marathon."


That sentiment is shared by Shumeiko's colleagues in the upper house, where many deputies are also regional governors and mayors by dint of a presidential appointment rather than a popular election. A general moratorium on elections might sound very enticing indeed to them.


But what about the president? After all the trouble he went through to give Russia a new constitution, would Yeltsin throw democracy to the winds just to avoid elections?


There are hints that he would. Although Shumeiko's proposal has brought cries of protest, the reaction of Yeltsin's press secretary, Vyacheslav Kostikov, contained neither shock nor a rousing rejection. Instead, Kostikov said that he had been hearing about such proposals for a long time. On the heels of this cryptic remark, Interfax quoted a "high-ranking Kremlin official" as saying that the president could go along with the idea.


Then there was Georgy Satarov, Yeltsin's adviser on relations with parliament. Satarov's first reaction to Shumeiko's proposal last week was to say Yeltsin was against it. Satarov backtracked Tuesday, saying that if the people approved it in a referendum, a moratorium was theoretically possible.


Apropos of Filatov's rebuttal, I agree with Segodnya political commentator Sergei Parkhomenko who writes that the best confirmation of questionable information about the Kremlin leadership "is a denial of this information" by Filatov: He so rarely speaks for the president.


Then, there is the Z-factor. Yeltsin knows how populists take advantage of widespread discontent to unseat ruling parties, having come to power that way himself. Last Dec. 12, however, the president found out he was no longer the biggest populist in town. In the first round of Belarus' presidential elections last week, Moscow witnessed a fine preview of how things could go in two years' time: A firebrand maverick with a sharp tongue, a flair for controversy and a talent for making promises -- sound familiar? -- scored an impressive upset over the entrenched nomenklatura candidate.


To postpone, or not to postpone? Yeltsin, as usual, is preparing for both eventualities. Talking to foreign executives Tuesday, he referred to the 1996 presidential elections as if they were a sure thing. By Rybkin's account, on hearing of Shumeiko's proposal Yeltsin said: "Don't touch the 1996 elections."


On the other hand, the spate of decrees on fighting crime and shoring up the economy, the president's emphasis of the phrase "political stability," all point to the possibility that someone is preparing Yeltsin for the moment when he says: "My fellow Russians, I am sorry, but I have to do this for your sake..."