President Boris Yeltsin stormed out of Congress Friday after lawmakers refused to soften a resolution that limits his authority, and aides said he would call a plebiscite to settle Russia's power struggle.
A top aide said the president would not try to disband the Communist-dominated Congress of People's Deputies, but instead favored a plebiscite followed by elections to end the political impasse that has paralyzed his reforms.The Congress later overwhelmingly approved a resolution that sharply curbed Yeltsin's power.
After walking out, Yeltsin met with regional administrators and his chief rival, parliament speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov, to discuss the dangerous destabilization of the federal government.
Khasbulatov later told lawmakers "the situation is not so calm as to allow us to finish the Congress today." They voted to continue the emergency session for a fourth day Saturday.
"We are on the verge of a revolution, on the verge of unpredictable events," Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Shakhrai told reporters during a break in the session.
Yeltsin's executive authority has been eroded repeatedly by the Congress in recent months.
The sharp rupture in the national leadership was reminiscent of the split between the provisional and the Bolshevik governments in 1917, and between the Russian and Soviet governments in 1991. The 1917 split led to a bloody civil war and the 1991 split to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Unless the current crisis can be overcome, it seems almost certain to lead to the further disintegration of Russia.
In Washington, President Clinton said Friday that he still planned to meet with the Russian president in Vancouver, Canada, next month.
Shakhrai predicted that Congress would try to block Yeltsin's plans for a plebiscite and early elections and might even seek to impeach the president, an action he said Yeltsin would ignore.
Despite warnings from Yeltsin and his aides, the 1,033-member Congress voted 656-184 with 41 abstentions to give final approval to the resolution that stripped the president of many executive powers.
The measure, which voids a compromise reached in December, gives lawmakers the right to veto Yeltsin's decrees and returns to the Cabinet the power to introduce legislation, further diminishing presidential authority.
Yeltsin told lawmakers before walking out that if they did not remove the power-limiting measures from the resolution, "I shall really be forced to think about additional measures to preserve the balance of powers in the country."
Although he did not specify what measures he would take, top aides said he would press for the national plebiscite on April 25.
"It's much better to go to polling places than to take to the streets," Shakhrai told reporters.
The referendum would have been binding, although difficult to enforce. A plebiscite would have no legal standing but might be interpreted by Yeltsin - if he won - as moral basis to cement his authority unilaterally, perhaps declaring direct presidential rule.
Khasbulatov wants simultaneous elections. Currently, presidential elections are scheduled for 1996 and parliamentary elections for 1995.
Yeltsin was elected in democratic balloting in 1991. The Congress was elected in Communist-run balloting in 1990 and consists mainly of former Communist Party members who oppose market reforms.
Many lawmakers who formerly backed Yeltsin now accuse him of trying to amass too much power, pushing Russia back to its authoritarian past.