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#12 - JRL 2006-183 - JRL Home
Federation Council Members Split on Third Term for Putin

MOSCOW. Aug 11 (Interfax) - Members of Russia's Federation Council have diverging views on a third presidential term for President Putin: one group says the idea is wrongheaded, while another group supports it. Yet another group says it is up to Putin to decide.

"President Vladimir Putin repeatedly spoke on the third term and distinctly and clearly outlined his position," said Senator Igor Pushkarev, a representative of the Primorye legislative assembly in the upper house.

Pushkarev says that holding a referendum on the third term, as some politicians suggest, against the desire of the President, would be wrong, to say the least.

Commenting on the initiative of Primorye politicians to extend the mandate of the acting president, the senator suggested that the effort was timed to coincide with the upcoming elections to the Primorye parliament, due on October 8. "Some of the deputies proposing a similar initiative want to gain dividends and ride on Vladimir Putin's high ratings to score additional points in their own electoral campaign," Pushkarev said.

Another senator, Viktor Shudegov, head of Science and Culture Committee, expressed an opposite viewpoint. "I support a referendum on a third presidential term, because a referendum is the highest form of democracy," he told Interfax Friday.

The senator is convinced that turnout in the referendum will be colossal and an absolute majority will support an extension of the president's mandate.

In his turn, senator Nikolai Churkin, refers to Putin's words, expecting that the president will make the final decision himself.

"Whether the term of the president's mandate is extended or not will depend only on his own desire and the president has repeatedly expressed his position on the issue. I am sure that the president will take the only right decision concerning a third term," Churkin told Interfax Friday.

The senator added that he understood the desire of most Russians to see Putin after 2008. "During his presidency the nation has begun to live better and people have felt it. This is an indisputable fact. Russia has become an influential player on the world stage. And this is surely a merit of the current head of state," Churkin said.