A8 ez su the washington post.monday, february 24 , 2020
The World
iRAN
For first time since ’79,
turnout dips below 50%
Iran’s Interior Ministry said
Sunday that voter turnout in last
week’s parliamentary elections
stood at 4 2.6 percent, the lowest in
decades, in a possible sign of
widespread dissatisfaction with
Iran’s c lerical rulers and the state
of the economy amid intense
pressure from the United States.
Turnout has consistently been
above 50 percent in Iran since its
Islamic revolution in 1979.
Voters had limited options on
Friday’s ballot, as more than 7,
potential candidates — most of
them reformists and moderates —
had been disqualified.
Iran’s h ard-liners won all 30
parliamentary seats in Te hran,
state TV r eported Sunday.
Iran’s s upreme leader and other
top officials had urged people to
cast their ballots Friday as a show
of resistance in the face of U.S.
sanctions.
The elections took place under
the threat of a new coronavirus
that originated in China. Iran
reported its first cases and deaths
from the virus two days before the
polls.
Several crises have beset Iran
in the past year, including anti-
government demonstrations
sparked b y a rise in prices. There
were also p rotests after the
accidental downing of a
passenger j et b y Iran’s
Revolutionary Guard Corps a mid
heightened tensions w ith t he
United S tates in January.
— Associated PressgeRMANYExit polls: Merkel party,
far right dip in state voteThe center-left S ocial
Democrats won the most votes in
the Hamburg state election on
Sunday, a ccording to exit polls,
followed by the Green party.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
Christian Democrats appeared to
lose badly, receiving their weakest
results in Hamburg — which is
Germany’s second-biggest c ity and
its own state — in seven decades.
In w hat would be a major upset,
the far-right Alternative for
Germany (AfD) — which has been
especially successful in state
elections in eastern Germany —
appears not to have received the
5 percent of the vote needed to get
into the state assembly. It n etted
between 4.7 percent and 4.
percent, down from 6.1 percent in
2015, according to exit polls
released by German public
broadcasters ARD and ZDF.
The Social D emocrats received
38 percent of the v ote, d own f rom
45.6 percent in 2015 b ut still t he
winner. The Greens almost
doubled their result to
25.5 percent. T he C hristian
Democrats received 11 percent,
down from 1 5.9 percent.
The election comes at a time of
political turmoil in Germany. O n
Wednesday, n ine people werekilled by an immigrant-hating
gunman in the Frankfurt suburb
of Hanau.
It w as Germany’s third deadly
far-right attack in months and
came at a time when the AfD has
become the nation’s f irst party i n
decades to establish itself as a
major force on the extreme right.
Earlier this month, a
controversial vote in Thuringia in
which the state governor was
elected with the votes of the AfD —
and the Christian Democrats’
voting with far-right colleagues —
appalled left-leaning parties and
many in the mainstream center-
right camp. Partnering with the
far right has been a political taboo
since after World War II.
Final official results were
expected Monday night.
— Associated Press9 dead in Turkey after quake
along border with Iran: A 5.7-
magnitude earthquake killed
nine people in eastern Turkey o n
Sunday, Health Minister
Fahrettin Koca said. The quake
centered j ust east across t he
border i n neighboring Iran. The
health minister said at l east 37
people were i njured. Iran’s o fficial
Islamic R epublic News Agency
said at l east 75 p eople were
injured i nside Iran, a nd six w ere
hospitalized. A second
earthquake — also 5.7 magnitude
— struck in the same area i n Iran,
according to the c ountry’s
seismology c enter. It w as n ot
clear whether t hat quake caused
further damage or casualties.Haitian police exchange fire
with troops: Off-duty police
officers and their supporters
exchanged fire for nearly two
hours with members o f the newly
reconstituted Haitian army i n
front of the n ational p alace in
Port-au-Prince, i n a dangerous
escalation of p rotests over p olice
pay and working conditions. A t
least t hree men were t aken t o a
hospital with wounds t o the legs
and f eet. Uniformed police
officers said t he w ounded men
were fellow officers. I t was n ot
clear which side began firing f irst.
The army w as disbanded in 1995
after t he fall of a dictatorship that
used soldiers to repress domestic
opponents. President Jovenel
Moïse re-formed the army i n 2017.Saudi-led coalition in Yemen
says it foiled attack by Houthis:
Naval forces from the Saudi-led
coalition fighting i n Yemen foiled
an “imminent terrorist” a ttack by
the Iranian-aligned Houthi
movement i n the s outhern Red
Sea, a major commercial shipping
channel, t he coalition said. The
forces d estroyed an u nmanned
boat laden with explosives that
was l aunched from Hodeida
province i n western Yemen, a
coalition spokesman said,
without identifying t he targets.
There w as no c onfirmation from
the Houthi m ovement, which h as
been battling the c oalition s ince
2015 i n a conflict largely s een as a
proxy w ar b etween S unni S audi
Arabia and Shiite Iran.
— F rom news servicesDigestangel medina g/epa-eFe/shutterstock
A woman watches surfers ride the waves at a beach on a windy
Sunday on Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in Spain’s Canary Islands.scite on the changes.
Putin set up a working group
of 75 doctors, politicians, musi-
cians, actors, film directors, busi-
ness people, sports figures and
others to decide on amendments.
One participant, former pole
vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, admit-
ted that she had never read the
constitution before joining the
group — she saw no need to.
Putin is popular, but without
some candy to attract voters, the
turnout could be embarrassingly
low, or worse: T he result could be
the wrong one. The bait is two
amendments to index pensions
and to set the minimum wage
above the poverty line, even
though that already happens un-
der Russian law.
“There’s nothing new. Both
proposals guarantee nothing.
But it’s using propaganda to
increase the support of these
amendments,” Ryzhkov said.
Voters will be given a yes-or-no
vote on the full text of the new
constitution. So if they like the
state commitment to social pay-
ments, they will get every other
amendment, too.
In e arly February, P utin denied
the changes were a ploy to retain
power.
“The amendments that are
proposed are simply dictated by
life, I believe,” he told a gatheringin Cherepovets, about 300 miles
north of Moscow. “It is just that
over the course of my term in the
office of president and prime
minister, it became evident to me
that certain things are not work-
ing as they should.”
Putin’s critics say this is non-
sense.
After 2024, Putin could take on
a powerful post-presidency role
such as State Council head. Vest-
ing new powers in that body
could create a vehicle for him to
steer foreign and military policy
and to ensure that his vision of
Russia as a great world nuclear
power does not unravel in some
future orgy of corruption and
incompetence.
There are other proposals for
retiring presidents: One would
guarantee him immunity from
prosecution. Another would
make him a lifetime senator in
Russia’s upper house.
Ryzhkov and others argue the
measures would fossilize Russia
as authoritarian and inward-
looking, and weaken checks on
power.
Among them are proposals to
ban Russians who ever held for-
eign residency from running for
president or parliament. That
would rule out pro-democracy
figures and business executives
who have fled Putin’s Russia.The new constitution could
also give Russian law supremacy
over international law — which
would mean that the thousands
of appeals by Russians annually
to the European Court for Hu-
man Rights would be in vain. At
the beginning of 2020, there were
17,748 Russian appeals to the
court, which has often criticized
Russian authorities for rights
abuses.
Other p roposals would remove
the term “independent” f rom an
article on the Constitutional
Court and make it easier for the
president to remove j udges.
Andrei Klishas, the co-chair-
man of the constitutional review
group, said many of the 700
amendments from the public ex-
pressed simple ideas, such as the
desire for good health care and
education.
“Many of these proposals are
the same. They repeat each oth-
er,” said Klishas, who heads the
Federation Council Committee
on Constitutional Legislation
and State Building.
“So our task as the working
group,” he said, “is to look at
these proposals, discuss them
with representatives of civil soci-
ety and then decide which pro-
posal will gain the most support
in society and then develop texts
of amendments based on theseproposals.”
About 40 are expected to make
the final cut.
No matter what proposals
come forward, Klishas insisted,
Putin has ruled out any change to
fundamental human rights.
“We discussed this situation
with Putin several times, and the
president’s position on this is
very firm and strong,” he said.
“The basic rights and freedoms
should remain untouched.”
Klishas’s Federation Council
office has eight chunky white
telephones, underscoring his im-
portance, including four hotlines
without dials or buttons. When
one of them rang, he asked
Washington Post journalists to
leave the room. His walls are
decked with maps, bright icons
and a photograph of Putin speak-
ing on the phone in a grand
office, a raw portrait of power.
Klishas said Russians who sur-
vived the chaos of the early 1990s
— when pensions and salaries
went unpaid or were late —
associated Russia’s social stabili-
ty with Putin, hence the need to
write provisions in the constitu-
tion guaranteeing social pay-
ments in future.
Andrei Kolesnikov, a political
analyst with the Carnegie Mos-
cow Center, said Putin’s recent
dismissal of an unpopular gov-ernment and promises of in-
creased social benefits were de-
signed to boost his popularity,
just as his annexation of Crimea
from Ukraine in 2014 saw his
ratings soar, even as Russia came
under international sanctions
and denunciations.
“He’s trying to mobilize peo-
ple,” Kolesnikov said. “But it’s
really uncomfortable because
Crimea was a really serious boost
to his popularity, and the consti-
tution can’t add anything to his
ratings.”
An opinion poll by Levada last
month showed that 47 percent of
Russians believed Putin was us-
ing the referendum to expand his
powers and remain in power.
Still, 72 percent planned to vote
in favor.
“Putin becomes the successor
of himself,” Kolesnikov said. “But
institutionally this is a problem
because the simultaneous exis-
tence of the president, who is still
empowered, and the head of a
State Council, could generate
conflict between these two fig-
ures.
“This has only been developed
for Putin. There is no practical
need for any kind of chair of the
State Council,” he said. “This is all
about Putin himself, not about
the political structure.”
[email protected]BY ROBYN DIXONMOSCOW — When President
Vladimir Putin threw open the
gates for Russians to propose
changes to the country’s consti-
tution, the rewrite frenzy was on
— particularly among national-
ists, social conservatives, chau-
vinists and militants, who all
dream of a Russia even more
strident and militaristic.
Russia is revamping its liberal
Boris Yeltsin-era constitution,
and citizens and organizations
have put forward more than 700
suggested amendments — many
with a distinctly anti-liberal
bent.
How about declaring Putin
Russia’s “Supreme Leader”? Or
maybe enshrining the country’s
nuclear weapons in the constitu-
tion? Perhaps it’s time to work in
wording to protect the purity of
the Russian language, or elevate
Russia’s “civilized identity” or
preserve its “cultural patrimo-
ny”?
There are calls, backed by
Putin, to rule out same sex-mar-
riage and LGBT parental rights
in the constitution.
And the Russian Orthodox
Church leaped at the chance to
scythe away the references to
Russia as a secular nation, pro-
posing words about God instead
and highlighting Russia as “God’s
storied native land.”
Gennady Zyuganov, leader of
the Communist Party — the ideo-
logical successor to the atheist
party that governed the Soviet
Union for more than 70 years —
supported the church’s idea in a
sign of the party’s drift from its
roots.
Vladimir Ryzhkov, a historian
and opposition politician, said
many of the amendments were
“crazy proposals” mainly from
people who opposed the liberal,
humanist constitution of 1993.
But it’s a road map of where
Russia has moved under Putin,
who ordered the constitutional
redo last month as part of an
apparent plan to keep his grip on
power after term limits force him
out of the presidency in 2024.
“Many people around Putin
and many people in this country,
they hate the [1993] constitution
because it’s too liberal for them,”
Ryzhkov said. “Now that Putin
opened this Pandora’s box of
changing the constitution, all
these conservative, reactionary,
nationalistic, xenophobic, anti-
European, anti-liberal political
forces feel the possibility to kill
this constitution, t o kill t his liber-
al spirit.”
“That’s the reason,” he added,
“so many crazy amendments are
being proposed now.”
The deadline for proposals
from the public is April 2. No d ate
has been set for a national plebi-
Russian constitutional revamp takes on anti-liberal bent
alexei druzhinin/sputnik/kremlin pool/epa-eFe/shutterstock
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with a working group on drafting proposals for amendments to the constitution in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow on Feb. 13.Critics say proposed
changes are a ll about
preserving Putin’s p ower