MOSCOW, April 14 (AFP) - President Boris Yeltsin's young protege
Sergei Kiriyenko took a giant stride towards becoming Russia's next
prime minister Tuesday when he secured the unexpected support of the
country's influential parliament speaker.
Kiriyenko, 35, appeared poised to win a confirmation vote in
parliament after the Communist speaker of the State Duma lower
house, Gennady Seleznyov, broke party ranks to support the
controversial candidate and predict his victory on Friday.
"The candidacy of Sergei Kiriyenko for the post of prime
minister must be confirmed," said the speaker, predicting Kiriyenko
would garner at least 235 votes in the 450-seat chamber. Kiriyenko
needs a simple majority, 226 votes, to secure confirmation.
Seleznyov told Moscow Echo radio the Communist Party's central
committee would meet Thursday to iron out its position ahead of the
vote.
The moderate though influential member of the Communist Party
which has robustly opposed Kiriyenko's candidacy said it was more
important that the Duma complete its term through December 1999 than
to take a stand against Yeltsin's protege.
The Duma, which has scheduled a second vote on Kiriyenko for
Friday, faces dissolution and fresh parliamentary elections if it
rejects the president's candidate three times.
"For me it is a thousand times more important to preserve the
Duma and let it work for its full constitutional mandate," Seleznyov
said, warning that Yeltsin was determined to dissolve the Duma if
deputies rejected his candidate three times.
"It is impossible to talk the president out of it," he added.
Kiriyenko was defeated in a first-round vote by 186 votes to
143.
The more hardline Communist leader, Gennady Zyuganov, has argued
that Yeltsin's renomination of Kiriyenko violates the constitution
and threatened to take the matter to the constitutional court.
The court on Tuesday said however it would not resolve the
parliamentary wrangle prompted by Yeltsin's renomination of the
young reformer as it would not put other cases on hold, the agency
Interfax reported.
Zyuganov said meanwhile that the former energy minister is too
young and inexperienced to hold the second highest public office in
a major nuclear power
Under the constitution the premier becomes acting head of state
if the president becomes incapacitated. Yeltsin has suffered
frequent bouts of ill health in recent years which have kept him
away from the Kremlin for prolonged periods.
The current crisis was sparked when Yeltsin sacked the
government on March 23 and appointed the little-known Kiriyenko to
draw up a new economic programme and cabinet.
In a sign of the continued lack of faith in Yeltsin's new
discovery, the leaders of most Duma factions signed a statement
Tuesday saying that Kiriyenko's confirmation "threatens to deepen
the country's social and economic problems, further destabilising
the situation."
The statement described Kiriyenko as "without any notable
support among influential Russian economic and political forces
(and) without serious experience of practical work," Interfax news
agency reported.
Despite this, analysts said Seleznyov's change of heart Tuesday
greatly increased Kiriyenko's chances of success on Friday.
"There is a very big chance now that they will confirm Kiriyenko
in the second round," said the Carnegie Endowment's Nikolai Petrov. |
