KAZAN, Russia -- Voters in the oil-rich Tatarstan Autonomous Republic in central Russia approved by a wide majority a sovereignty referendum to seek more independence from Moscow, the local election commission said Sunday.
Alexander Lozovoi, deputy chairman of the Tatarstan Parliament, said the results of the poll did not mean the republic wanted to secede from Russia but would put local officials in a better position to negotiate with Moscow.
Preliminary results showed 61.4 percent of those who voted cast 'yes' ballots Saturday on the question: 'Do you agree that the republic of Tatarstan is a sovereign state, a subject of international law, constructing its relations with the Russian Federation and other republics and states on the basis of equal treaties?'
The election commission in Kazan, capital of the region of 3.6 million people about 450 miles east of Moscow, said 37.2 percent voted 'no' and 1.4 percent of the ballots were ruled invalid.
A total of 81.7 percent of the eligible voters cast ballots in the republic -- whose population includes about 48 percent Turkic-speaking Muslim Tatars and 43 percent ethnic Russian.
'The referendum did not set out to decide the issue of whether or not to leave the Russian Federation,' Lozovoi said. 'What is at issue is raising the status of the republic.'
He said the republic would continue negotiations with Russia over the proposed federal treaty, initialed a week ago by the leaders of all Russian autonomous republics except Tatarstan and Chechnia. The Russian government announced Sunday the actual signing of the treaty had been postponed from March 25 to at least March 31 'because of organizational problems.'
The referendum results will strengthen Tatarstan's bargaining position in negotiations with the Russian government, particularly in the key area of the region's annual 30 million-ton oil production and other natural resources.
Lozovoi said several aspects of the proposed federal treaty were unacceptable for Tatarstan, notably joint control over natural resources between the republic and the federal government.
'We know what joint control is ... and it may leave the republic with a very small share,' he said.
Lozovoi criticized the absence of a clause allowing republics to secede from the Russian Federation. He said Tatarstan also wants to have its own police force and court system, which in the federal treaty draft are subordinate to Russia.
In addition, Tatarstan wants the tax system reformed so that the republic will only pay for government programs that directly benefit it, like ecology, transport, and communications.
Russia's Constitutional Court had declared the vote unconstitutional and the Parliament in Moscow said it was invalid. Russian President Boris Yeltsin had appealed to Tatarstan to cancel the referendum, and then asked for a 'no' vote.
Tatarstan, one of 20 autonomous republics within the Russian Federation, first declared its sovereignty in August 1990. Its parliament has since amended the republic's constitution to declare local laws have precedence over those of Russia -- much like a Russian declaration concerning Soviet law when Yeltsin was fighting central power.
Tatars are Russia's largest ethnic group, and nationalists advocating secession have spread the message that sovereignty would mean the end of Russian domination that began when Czar Ivan the Terrible conquered the Tatar Khanate in 1552.
The Tatarstan autonomous republic is surrounded on all sides by Russian territory.
