MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's first post-Soviet leader Boris Yeltsin issued a veiled warning that President Vladimir Putin's decision to hand sweeping new powers to the Kremlin in the wake of the Beslan hostage crisis could roll back democratic freedoms.
"We should not allow ourselves to step away from the letter -- or the spirit -- of a constitution that the country adopted in a national referendum in 1993," he told the Moscow News daily.
"The strangling of freedoms, the roll-back of democratic rights -- this can only mean that the terrorists won," Yeltsin added.
"Only a democratic country can successfully lead a fight against terrorism," wrote Yeltsin.
Yeltsin said he expected Russia "to stay shoulder to shoulder with other civilized nations" in the fight against terrorism.
The interview, released to the media on Thursday, will be published in the paper's Friday edition.
Putin has announced plans to cancel the right of voters to elect regional governors across Russia in the wake of the Beslan hostage crisis, which killed more than 330 people, half of them children.
The gubernatorial candidates will in the future be put forward by the Kremlin, for local regional governments to approve.
Elections to the lower house of parliament, already two-thirds controlled by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, will be held in future only on a party-list basis, ending the right of independent candidates to contest half the seats in the State Duma.
Both European countries and the United States have criticized Putins's measures, voicing concern that they will weaken democracy in Russia.
Yeltsin, who stared down the Soviet Union and its communist leaders, introducing a brand new constitution based on democratic reforms, had annointed Putin as his successor before dramatically resiging on December 31, 1999 amid ill health and single-digit approval ratings.
He has at times criticised Putin's policies, but his latest comments, though veiled, appeared to be some of his sternest against the new regime yet.
Yeltsin said that the Beslan crisis was a "watershed" movement for Russia.
"Now, we are all different," Yeltsin said. "And the nation is also different.