Upper house speaker blasts One Russia's idea of Putin as 'national leader'
Interfax
Vladivostok, 12 November: Sergey Mironov, the leader of the A Just Russia party, believes that one cannot "appoint" a "national leader" and regards One Russia's idea that Vladimir Putin should have this status as election PR.
"I regard the idea that the status of national leader should be enshrined in the incumbent head of state as yet another project using PR technologies on the part of One Russia. Our constitution has no such provision as national leader," Mironov told a news conference on Monday (12 November) during his working trip to Vladivostok.
In his opinion, the president "has known for a long time his future place in the ranks". "This place will give the incumbent head of state after he steps down in March 2008 every opportunity to be in the picture of everything that is happening in the country and to influence both internal and foreign policy," Mironov said.
He stressed that "one cannot be appointed a national leader, a national leader is either a national leader or not". "Over the years of his presidency Vladimir Putin has proven that he is a real patriot and democrat, and the guardian of the law," Mironov said.
Commenting on the assertions of One Russia's members, in particular (One Russia leader Boris) Gryzlov, that the 2007 election will be a referendum on support for Putin, the speaker said that "it is still the parliamentary election that will take place on 2 December and one should proceed from that".
"As for support for Putin, one will have to add up the votes for One Russia and for our party, which has consistently supported and continues to support Vladimir Putin at every stage," Mironov said.
Commenting on the refusal of One Russia to take part in election debates, Mironov said that "by doing so One Russia shot the president in the eye".
"I believe that the head of state should not have led the One Russia (electoral) list. Our president has no party affiliation, he is the president of all the people of Russia," Mironov said.
He added that he had been looking forward to meeting One Russia at an election debate. "I have questions for this party. Above all, I would have asked One Russia why they still had not passed an anticorruption law," the speaker said. (Passage omitted).