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.
Russia's current constitution was drafted by Yeltsin aides amid a brutal political fight with entrenched communists who at the time had control over the parliament.
It put power in the hands of the presidency but also introduced direct elections for regional governors and reserved half of the seats in parliament for locally elected lawmakers -- measures that Putin revoked this week.
Yeltsin, 73, who had anointed former KGB agent Putin as his successor, broke a silence that has largely characterized his recent years to express concern about the course Russia is taking.
"The strangling of freedoms, the rollback of democratic rights -- this can only mean that the terrorists won," Yeltsin said.
"Only a democratic country can successfully lead a fight against terrorism," Yeltsin wrote.
The interview, released to the media on Thursday, will be published in the paper's Friday edition.
Putin has announced plans to abolish direct suffrage to elect regional governors across Russia in the wake of the Beslan school hostage crisis, which killed nearly 340 people, half of them children.
Gubernatorial candidates will instead 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.
The move is expected to help parties like United Russia and hurt smaller liberal factions which now have only a handful of representatives in parliament.
"These measures are unconstitutional," fumed Alexander Ivanchenko, the deputy head of the Yabloko faction which, along with other liberal forces, lost almost all their seats in parliament.
"It is very important that Yeltsin spoke of this, since after all, he is the author of the constitution," agreed another ousted liberal, Boris Nemtsov, who served as a deputy prime minister under Yeltsin.
European countries and the United States have criticized Putin's measures, voicing concern that they will weaken democracy and return Russia towards its Soviet past.
Yeltsin chose Putin as his successor before dramatically resigning on December 31, 1999, amid ill health and single-digit approval ratings.
He has at times criticized Putin's policies, but his latest comments, though veiled, were some of his sternest yet against the new regime.
Yeltsin called the Beslan crisis a "watershed" for Russia. "Now, we are all different," he said. "And the nation is also different."
The government has linked the Beslan attack to rebels from breakaway Chechnya and international terror networks.
Yeltsin waged the first Chechen war in 1994-96, later calling it his greatest political mistake.
The second campaign began in the twilight of his presidency, spearheaded by Putin, his prime minister at the time.
Putin has repeatedly proclaimed the second Chechen war as over and won, despite almost daily deaths on both sides in the conflict.
The West cooled its criticism of the war following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and Putin's proclamation that Russia was joining the global war on terror.
But Washington infuriated Putin this month by calling for negotiations with the rebels and offering to meet with some of the separatist leaders to help solve the conflict.
Yeltsin, whose time in office saw the regions win unprecedented independence from Moscow -- a move that critics said led to corruption and crime -- defended his right to personally contact Putin and criticize his latest moves.
"I think that this is a correct and civilized way for two presidents -- the former and the current one -- to conduct their relations," Yeltsin said.