Hardliners complain

Sergei Baburin, the leading hardline nationalist opponent of President Boris Yeltsin, said a ban excluding his party from next month's parliamentary election was part of a campaign to hobble the opposition, Reuter reports from Moscow.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper said moves were afoot to crush the opposition and leave President Yeltsin with 'the power of life and death'. Its commentary followed the exclusion from the election of eight political groups, including Mr Baburin's Russian All-People's Union, and publication of a draft constitution that will make Mr Yeltsin supreme in the land.