Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 5, 1991                   TAG: 9104050316
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Medium

YELTSIN WINS POWERS TO RULE BY DECREE

The breakthrough on the eighth day of the stalemated Russian Congress of People's Deputies gives Yeltsin the means to try to override opposition in his own republic and face the Soviet president on a more equal footing.

"It will equalize their positions and will let them cooperate," said Alexander Rutskoy, leader of a newly formed group of Communist Party moderates who broke with hard-liners on Tuesday.

But Yeltsin was given no enforcement powers, such as a long-discussed Russian army, and there was no assurance local officials would obey his decrees.

The rivalry between Yeltsin and Gorbachev, one-time allies who split three years ago over the pace of reform, has hobbled any significant progress on economic reform since Yeltsin ascended to the Russian leadership last year.

Yeltsin, who favors privatization of property and other radical reforms, has pushed through laws that conflict with the conservative steps taken by Gorbachev's national leadership. Yeltsin also has become the flag-bearer for many of the 15 republics that are seeking greater self-rule or outright independence from the Kremlin.

The power struggle was the background for the impasse at the Russian parliament, a 1,063-member body that was roughly split between reformers and conservatives until Rutskoy's group bolted from the hard-line bloc Communists of Russia.

"We hope to become a mediating group to find a way out" of the Yeltsin-Gorbachev standoff, said Andrei Dunayev, a co-leader of the 96-member parliamentary group, Communists for Democracy.

Hard-liners at the parliament have been unable to gain a majority for a vote of no-confidence in Yeltsin, the initial reason for the session. And Yeltsin has been unable to persuade the Congress to amend the Russian constitution to provide for direct elections to a strengthened presidency.

Yeltsin offered the surprise alternative Thursday morning, and after orderly debate in the usually turbulent parliament, lawmakers voted 588-292, with 23 abstentions, to give it preliminary approval. The deputies proceeded to debate minor changes, a traditional procedure, and were expected to give it final approval today.

The resolution gives Yeltsin and the Russian leadership "the right to issue obligatory orders. . . on the territory of the Russian Federation within the framework of existing laws."

It empowers them to take "urgent measures for taking society out of crisis, defending the economic basis of Russia's sovereignty, providing for a transition to a market economy, reorganizing and strengthening the system of administration and law enforcement, averting, limiting and halting strikes."

The resolution transfers most of the parliament's legislative duties to its smaller working legislature, the Supreme Soviet, but keeps final authority in the Congress.

It also prohibits Yeltsin from dissolving the parliament and requires him to obtain agreement from local governments before imposing new rules on them.

Those are greater restrictions than Gorbachev faces under the broad presidential powers approved by the national parliament last year.

Taking on the new powers could be a risk for Yeltsin, who could be blamed in coming months for failing to solve the republic's complex economic and ethnic problems even with the new authority. He has fended off criticism for a year by saying his hands were tied by restrictive national laws and uncooperative officials.