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Subject: Russian Congress opens door to compromise
Keywords: international, non-usa government, government, politics,
	government officials
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 22:39:59 PDT
Location: soviet union
ACategory: international
Slugword: russia-government
Priority: regular
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	MOSCOW (UPI) -- Russia's Congress and the administration of President
Boris Yeltsin have reached a compomise, apparently reaching a truce in a
power struggle and breaking an impasse over the pace of economic reform.
	By voting late Tuesday to affirm the new republic's ``determination''
to continue Yeltsin's program of moving Russia toward a market economy,
the Congress of People's Deputies broke a deadlock in a power struggle
that had resulted in the temporary resignation of the cabinet.
	Although the Congress stopped short of an outright endorsement of the
Yeltsin reform plan -- instead it offered only a cautious approval of a
draft measure for further discussion -- Yeltsin aides applauded the
action as a shift toward their political reform program.
	``Everything will calm down,'' predicted Sergei Stankevich, state
advisor to the president. ``By the end of the Congress, an agreement
will be reached. There will be changes within the government. There will
be no need for the government to resign. ... There are some criticisms
that can be made. But it's not a crisis. It will all blow over.''
	However, the Congress left intact for the time being the measure it
passed Saturday stripping the president of his additional powers of
prime minister and pulling back from some of the more radical reforms
already under way.
	Saturday's measure and the generally conservative positions of the 1,
000-member Congress -- elected two years ago when the Communist Party
still controlled the government -- prompted U.S. Treasury Secretary
Nicholas Brady to warn Russia's Congress against taking ``steps
backwards.''
	Deputy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar has been warning the conservative
Congress -- which has balked at the Yeltsin-Gaidar reform program -- that
$24 billion in Western aid could be in jeopardy if Russia retreats from
reforms that include measures required by international financial
institutions.
	Brady, visiting Moscow one day representing the Group of Seven
industrial countries that are Russian benefactors, said the G-7 was
confident that Russia's political and economic debate in the Congress 
``will get sorted out in a way that will allow the aid package to go
forward.''
	``Russia has to go through its own internal deliberations, but we
would have to say that the steps we read about up to now are steps
backward, not steps forward in getting that program enacted,'' he said.
	Brady said the Russian Congress should ``understand the process by
which aid comes to Russia involves an economic program which is ...
sound not only from their point of view but is one which the IMF
(International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank, the world
organizations, will have confidence in.''
	``In no manner of speaking are we trying to proscribe or interfere
with the internal Russian conferences and congresses that come to their
own conclusions, but the matter of world confidence in a reform program
here in Russia is one that's very important in terms of the transfer of
money to this country,'' Brady said, ``and I would have to say that some
of the steps we have read about this week are steps backwards in
generating world confidence.''
	Yeltsin was reported to be too busy to meet with Brady, canceling a
meeting. But Brady met with Gaidar, who said, ``Nicholas Brady told me
that the West does not want to insist on any course. Still, it's not
going to give us money for irresponsible policy.''
	Yeltsin spent his day huddling with his Cabinet -- which submitted its
tentativeresignation Monday in a stormy session with Congress in the
impasse that has apparently been resolved.
	Adopting the compromise with the executive branch, Congress voted
530-226 to approve a Yeltsin-backed draft declaration asserting ``firm
determination to consistently continue the implemented course of
economic reforms adopted at the 5th Congress,'' which last fall granted
Yeltsin special powers to push through reforms. That support has eroded,
largely because of the painful price rises and the slow pace of
transforming the bulky Russian economy.
	Although the measure was just a draft requiring further action to be
implemented, Yeltsin aide Galina Starovoitova called it a ``step toward
compromise.''
	The Congress also considered various amendments to the old Soviet
constitution -- instead of considering proposals for a new Russian
constitution -- but it handed Yeltsin a victory by rejecting conservative
attempts to further strengthen parliamentary powers at the expense of
the president.
	The Congress also voted to change the name of Leningrad to St.
Petersburg in the constitution -- which voters in Russia's second largest
city have already done. In earlier attempts to change the name of the
that city, Congress was unable to muster the necessary two-thirds vote.
It kept on trying until it did.
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