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Duma to hold

special session

MOSCOW: The lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, will hold an extraordinary session on Saturday to discuss a crucial draft election law, parliamentary leaders decided on Wednesday.

The Duma, now on its summer holidays, will try to overrule a veto by the Federation Council upper chamber on the draft, which defines the boundaries of 225 electoral constituencies. The other half of the Duma is elected on party lists.

The Duma needs a two-thirds majority to override the Federation Council's veto.

President Boris Yeltsin's aides have suggested the issue could be settled by presidential decree.

But many deputies, mostly from parties opposed to Yeltsin, fear the absence of the law could be used as the basis for a constitutional challenge by losing parties in the parliamentary elections, due on December 17.

They have their eye on the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan where the constitutional court ruled a 1994 election invalid on similar grounds. President Nurstultan Nazarbayev subsequently dissolved parliament.

The Duma might also reopen discussions on a half-passed draft law which recommends that Yeltsin abandon U.N. sanctions against rump Yugoslavia unilaterally.-Reuter