Word: presidium
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Liberals expressed disappointment last week that there had been no personnel changes in the Central Committee. Gorbachev may have decided that there was no point in shuffling the Politburo if the institution's days are numbered anyway. Current plans call for the creation of a Central Committee Presidium of about 30 members, presided over by a chairman and two deputies. In a bid to halt the secessionist trend begun by the Lithuanian Communists, the Presidium would include representatives from all 15 republics...
...chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Gorbachev seems to spend most of his time as a speaker of the house, presiding over excruciatingly long parliamentary debates. The plenum discussed plans to invest the position with enhanced powers, creating a presidency more along the lines of the American or French model. The Soviet President's new portfolio is likely to include national security, foreign policy, the KGB and police and oversight of economic reforms. Georgi Arbatov, the country's best-known Americanologist, believes the new President should have veto powers, noting that "we should carefully study the American experience...
Estonia, one of the restive Baltic republics where perestroika and glasnost have spawned independence movements, was rebuked by the highest level of government last week. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet said Estonia violated the Soviet constitution by imposing a two-year residence requirement on voters in local elections. Estonia's Russian minority called the act discriminatory, and 40,000 Russian workers went on strike...
...certain, though, that Estonia has lost the fight. The Presidium simply sent the electoral law back to the Estonian parliament for review. And in a semi-bow to Baltic sensibilities, Politburo member Alexander Yakovlev confirmed that the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pacts secretly assigned the three states to Moscow's sphere of influence on the eve of World War II. But he denied this had any bearing on the status of the republics, which Moscow annexed in 1940 as members of the U.S.S.R...
Premier Zurab Chkheidze also was removed at a separate meeting of Georgia's Presidium, or top government body, the official Tass news agency reported from Tbilisi. Nodari Chitanava, a Central Committee secretary, was named the new head of the republic's government, Tass said...