The new constitution gave the president extraordinary powers, compelling some to label the new regime a form of authoritarianism.[83] The president appoints the prime minister. The lower house of parliament, the State Duma, must approve the president's choice for prime minister. But if they reject the president's candidate three times, then the Duma is dissolved and new elections are held. Not surprisingly, votes against the prime minister have been few and far between. The president also has the right to issue decrees, which have the power of law until overridden by a law passed by both the upper and lower houses of parliament and signed by the president. The president also controls the nomination process of judges in the Constitutional Court and Supreme
Court.[84]
Yeltsin's opponents ridiculed this new basic law, claiming not without merit that the new constitution gave the president extraordinary powers and the process of drafting the constitution was undemocratic. There was no compromise between different parties or regional leaders in the making of this constitution. Rather, Yeltsin imposed his will and then offered voters the choice to reject or accept his constitution. Nonetheless, most of Yeltsin's opponents participated in the December 1993 elections, in effect signalling that they were willing to acquiesce to these newly imposed rules. Perhaps most importantly, the leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation decided that it was in the party's best interest to participate in rather than boycott the December 1993 vote.[85] In a referendum in December 1993 marred by claims of fraud, a majority of voters approved the constitution.[86] After the referendum, no major political force in Russia mobilised to challenge the constitution. After years of ambiguity, Russia had a new set of formal rules for organising politics accepted both by the majority of the population and by all strategic political actors.
Chechnya
The same constitutional ambiguity that fuelled conflict between Yeltsin and the Congress also allowed federal conflicts to fester. Eventually, one of them - Chechnya - exploded into a full-scale war.
Tensions between Moscow and the regions arose well before the 1993 executive-legislative stand-off.[87] Immediately after the August 1991 coup attempt, General Jokhar Dudayev and his government declared Chechnya's independence. In March of the following year, Tatarstan held a successful referendum for full independence. The first of several federal treaties were signed in March 1992, but negotiations over a new federal arrangement embedded within a constitution dragged on without resolution into the summer of i993, prompting several other republics as well as oblasts to make their own declarations of independence complete with their own flags, customs agents and threats of minting new currencies. Yeltsin allowed these federal ambiguities to linger. Consumed with starting market reform and then distracted by the power struggle with the Congress, Yeltsin opted not to devote time or resources towards constructing a Russian federal order. Moreover, the Russian state was too weak to exercise sovereignty over a breakaway republic like Chechnya, which enjoyed de facto independence during this period. After the October 1993 stand-off, Yeltsin did put before the people a new constitution, ratified in December 1993, which formally spelled out a solution to Russia's federal ambiguities (see Map 13.1). The new constitution specified that all constituent elements were to enjoy equal rights vis-a-vis the Centre. Absent from the document was any mention of a mechanism for secession.
The formal rules of a new constitution did not resolve the conflicts between the Centre and the regions. Negotiation overthe distribution ofpowerbetween the central and sub-national governments continued. But all sub-national governments except one - Chechnya - acquiesced to a minimalist maintenance of a federal order. Ironically, the clarity of rules generally highlighted the specific problem of Chechnya's status.
After solidifying his power with the defeat of the Russian Congress and the adoption of a new constitution, Yeltsin committed to a military solution following a series of challenges from Dudayev regarding Russian sovereignty during negotiations over the federal treaty in the spring of 1994 and a spate of bus hijackings in the region that summer. A failed coup attempt orchestrated by Russia's Federal Security Service was followed by a ground assault on 1 December 1994 and a full-scale air attack beginning on 11 December 1994.[88]For the second time in as many years, Yeltsin had ordered the deployment of Russian military forces against his own people.[89]
On the eve of attack, Defence Minister Pavel Grachev predicted that the military action would be over within hours. The results of the invasion, however, were disastrous as Russia's armed forces proved ill-prepared to fight such a war (see Plate 24). By the time Russia finally sued for peace in the summer of 1996, an estimated 45,000-50,000 Russian citizens had lost their lives.[90] Moreover, the negotiated settlement that ended the war did not resolve Chechnya's sovereign status, an ambiguity that would later help to spark a second war (discussed below).
Founding elections: 1993-6
In addition to the constitutional referendum, Yeltsin also decreed that elections for the State Duma and the Federation Council would take place on 12 December 1993. These new parliamentarians were to serve only an interim two-year term, and then face election again in i995 for a full four-year term. Earlier in the year, Yeltsin had pledged to hold early elections for the presidency. After the October i993 events, he withdrew that pledge and instead scheduled the next presidential election for 1996. After two years of no elections in post- Communist Russia, this electoral calendar offered voters a chance to choose their national leaders three times in as many years.
Between June 1991 - the timing of the last national election in Soviet Russia - and December 1993 when the first set of competitive elections in the post-Soviet era were held, monumental changes unfolded in Russia, making predictions about electoral outcomes difficult. During this interval, the Russian economy as well as the Russian state had continued to contract, while political polarisation had generated instability and then outright military confrontation. Voter turn-out in December 1993, reported officially at 54.8 per cent, was markedly lower than any previous competitive elections in Russia in 1989,1990 and 1991.
Some outcomes from 1993 went according to the Yeltsin administration's plan. In the referendum, the official count claimed that 58.4 per cent supported Yeltsin's constitution, while 41.2 per cent opposed it. Elections to the upper house, the Federation Council, and elections in single-mandate districts for the Duma were unremarkable, producing pro-Yeltsin victories in most contexts. The one extraordinary electoral outcome in 1993 occurred on the proportional representation ballot for the Duma. Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his extreme nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) won almost a quarter of the popular vote. At the same time, the pro-Yeltsin Russia's Choice secured a paltry 15 per cent, less than half of what was expected, while the other 'democratic' parties all won less than i0 per cent of the popular vote. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation and their allies, the Agrarian Party of Russia, won less than 20 per cent of the vote, while new 'centrist' groups combined for nearly a quarter of the vote.
83
Donald Murray,
84
For details, see Eugene Huskey,
i999).
85
Joan Barth Urban and Valerii Solovei,
86
Timothy Colton, 'Public Opinion and the Constitutional Referendum', in Timothy Colton and Jerry Hough (eds.),
87
For overviews, see Steven Solnick, 'Is the Center Too Weak or Too Strong in the Russian Federation?', in Valerie Sperling (ed.),
89
For accounts of the war, see John Dunlop,
90
John Dunlop, 'How Many Soldiers and Civilians Died during the Russo-Chechen War of 1994-1996?'