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The Desire for Democracy
| Article
# : |
10177 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1993 |
2,617 Words |
| Author
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Carl Linden
Carl Linden is professor of political science and
international affairs at the Institute for European, Russian
and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University. |
The struggle between Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the Soviet-era Parliament led by its speaker, Ruslan Khasbulatov, had reached the point of constitutional crisis. Yeltsin threatened to assume special powers in order to force elections to break the deadlock, and the conservative Parliament responded with a threat to impeach the president. Neither side made good on its threat.
In the end, a referendum that was to be a vote of confidence on the Yeltsin leadership was agreed upon. The odds seemed pitched against Yeltsin, and few observers expected a clear-cut outcome. Nonetheless, Yeltsin emerged the dramatic victor in the contest.
The poll's decisive outcome surprised the many observers who saw little or no chance that a movement for representative government in Russia could stay on course in the turmoil left by the foundering of a totalitarian empire. The outcome, they believed, could only be ambiguous--Yeltsin's position further weakened and the right-wing nationalists and communists closer to their goal of terminating Russia's second tenuous experiment with liberal democracy in this century.
Once again Yeltsin was greatly underestimated. Russians came out in droves and voted decisively in his favor. The electorate was not at all fazed by the attempt of Yeltsin's parliamentary opposition to guarantee an equivocal result through their control over the formulation of the referendum questions. On the question of confidence in his leadership, Yeltsin gained close to 58.7 percent of the popular vote.
Surprisingly, even his economic reforms received a 53 percent majority. The drafters of the referendum had added the query on the economy. Expecting a strongly negative vote, they had inserted it as a spoiler that would cancel any positive result in the question of confidence in Yeltsin personally.
Although not happy with the parlous state of the economy, the electorate refused the bait and denied Yeltsin's opponents any handle to use against him. On the question of the antireform Parliament, the electorate registered its overwhelming rejection of its works in a 67 percent negative vote.
Yeltsin and the great majority
The outcome of the referendum ran completely counter to the dark prognosis of the doomsayers and, for that matter, the calculations of
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