YELTSIN AIDE SUPPORTS IDEA OF RE-DELEGATING PRESIDENT’S POWERS.

President Yeltsin’s representative to the Constitutional Court, Sergei Shakhrai, said yesterday that he supports the idea that, should the president become incapacitated, his powers should be delegated to the Speaker of the upper house of parliament, rather than to the (as yet unconfirmed) prime minister. Such a proposal had been voiced earlier by Duma faction leader Aleksandr Shokhin, but Yeltsin rejected it. Shakhrai said that adopting the change in the form of a constitutional law — rather than amending the constitution — was possible, and that Yeltsin may accept the idea in this form.

Former Border Service Chief Nikolaev to Create Centrist Party.