Boris Yeltsin must be deprived of the right to reside at the presidential country-house, to receive medical treatment in the Central Clinical Hospital, and to employ state bodyguards. Such is the essence of an amendment to the law on presidential guarantees after retirement, proposed by Communist deputy Viktor Ilyukhin. The lower house is to review the proposal at a plenary session this week.
>From the legal standpoint, to strip the first President of Russia of his
privileges is fairly easy. The Communist Party member Viktor Ilyukhin
suggests adding to the law on the guarantees to the head of the state and
his family after retirement an article stipulating provisions that will not
apply to the person who held the presidential office before December 31,
1999.
In other words, the proposed amendment suggests that like any other, this law must not have retroactive effect: Boris Yeltsin announced his resignation on December 31, 1999. The first thing, that Vladimir Putin did in his new capacity as the acting president was to sign a decree offering social and security guarantees to his predecessor and his family. Later, the State Duma in which the Communists no longer held the majority of seats turned this decree into law.
The Communist Ilyukhin has long been nurturing plans to strip Yeltsin and his relatives of all the privileges that they were so generously provided with. Finally, Ilyukhin's draft has made it to the State Duma council. On Tuesday the leaders of the Duma factions reviewed the proposal and included it in the agenda of the nearest plenary session.
There are few who doubt that the amendment will be rejected. It is unlikely that the deputies will agree to strip the former Russian President of his privileges that they themselves endowed him with. But then again, times have changed and a slight possibility remains that the voting on Ilyukhin's initiative will be the first case in Putin's Russia when the hidden struggle between the pro-Yeltsin old guard and Putin's new team will spill out into the open.
If that happens, Yeltsin may lose all his privileges and become a common pensioner. He will then have to move out of his luxurious Barvikha residence in the Moscow countryside, to fire his aides and bodyguards, to give up his free-of-charge office equipment, limos, government communication lines and exclusive high-class medical treatment at the Central Clinical Hospital.
Besides, the law on presidential guarantees offers social guarantees for the family members of retired heads of state. For instance, for 5 years following the death of the breadwinner his closest kin are still entitled to use the cars and medical treatment that they enjoyed when he was alive.
And perhaps most importantly, the first president of Russia has been granted judicial immunity, which, if Ilyukhin's amendment is passed, he will also be stripped of. The only thing Yeltsin will still have in this case is a large pension. As a retired senior state official he will still be entitled to 75 per cent of his presidential salary.
Ilyukhin's main argument is that Yeltsin does not deserve any privileges. ''It is not that I am so bloodthirsty,'' Ilyukhin told Gazeta.Ru. ''It is just that it is immoral to pay privileges to a person who has ruined the state. It has long been beyond my comprehension.''
According to the deputy's estimates, presently, the country is spending 60 million roubles annually to support Yeltsin's family. When the law on presidential guarantees came into effect, the government planned to spend some 45 million per year, but the sum has grown as a result of inflation.
''With this amendment I want to send out a warning to all future presidents, and those who strive for that position,'' Ilyukhin explained. ''It is necessary to establish a single practice that privileges must be deserved, not received for bringing about the collapse of the state.''
At the same time, Ilyukhin does not count on his fellow lawmakers' support for his initiative. ''Considering the composition of the State Duma, it is difficult for me to say that it will back the draft.''
However, the very fact that the amendment has reached the plenary session stage, for both Ilyukhin and his faction, is a sort of victory. There is no doubt that the populist idea will receive some support across the nation, and in the run up to the parliamentary polls the deputies value their voters much more than they did at the beginning of their term.