Surprise, surprise - Kiriyenko wins Duma support... I guess, the
deputees won't risk their seats after all. My bet is he will be
approved this Friday.
MOSCOW, April 14 (AFP) - Gennady Seleznyov, the Communist
speaker of the lower house State Duma, said Tuesday he supported the
candidacy of Sergei Kiriyenko for prime minister, Interfax
reported.
"The candidacy of Sergei Kiriyenko for the post of prime
minister must be confirmed," Seleznyov told reporters after a
meeting with President Boris Yeltsin, who has insisted on Kiriyenko
being confirmed as prime minister.
Leftist parties in parliament previously instructed their
deputies to vote against Kiriyenko's candidacy. Seleznyov is seen as
a moderate, though influential, figure in the Communist party
leadership.
Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov has argued that Yeltsin's
renomination of Kiriyenko violates the constitution, and that the
35-year-old technocrat is too young and inexperienced to be prime
minister.
But Seleznyov said Yeltsin was intent on sticking with his young
protege, and that parliament should not jeopardise its own future by
vetoing the candidate and risking dissolution.
"For me it is a thousand times more important to preserve the
Duma and let it work for its full constitutional mandate," Seleznyov
said.
The Duma, which has scheduled a second vote on Kiriyenko's
candidacy for Friday, faces dissolution and fresh parliamentary
elections if it rejects the president's candidate three times.
Deputies voted by 186 votes to 143 last Friday against
Kiriyenko's candidacy.
Seleznyov said Yeltsin "did not give any orders to dissolve the
Duma, but said he would make use of his constitutional right," if
the lower house of parliament rejected Kiriyenko three times.
Barring dissolution, parliamentary elections are not due until
December 1999.
"I warned the president that the result of the second round vote
might not be what he is expecting, but the president intends firmly
to present Kiriyenko's candidacy," Seleznyov said.
He added that Kiriyenko would take proposals by both houses of
parliament into consideration when forming his government and would
"continue talks with parliamentary groups up to Friday to reply to
all questions left unanswered after the first vote."
Yeltsin for his part was satisfied with his talks with the
parliament speaker, his spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said.
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