Moscow, 14 November: The leader of the CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation), Gennady Zyuganov, feels that the reshuffle carried out by Vladimir Putin marks the start of preparations for the 2008 presidential election.

"The first sounding of public opinion has been completed, and now we have moved on to the stage of finding out who will be the president's successor in 2008," Zyuganov told journalists.

He believes "the identity of the person who will actually be Putin's successor at the next presidential election will become clear over the next 3-4 months."

However, Zyuganov is convinced that this model for nominating a successor has no future. "Nicholas II, Khrushchev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin came unstuck trying to do this. This is not the best tradition to follow," the leader of the Communist Party said.

At the same time he regards the decision to introduce additional first deputy premier and vice-premier posts in the government as the right thing to do. "A government with only one deputy premier cannot function effectively in a large country. One deputy premier cannot even sign all the papers that have to be signed," Zyuganov noted.

However, he feels that without a radical change of course and policies the government cannot achieve greater effectiveness in its work. "These people ((new first deputy prime minister Dmitriy) Medvedev and (new deputy prime minister Sergey) Ivanov - Interfax note) belong to the president's team, but it remains to be seen how much they will help the government in its work. At the moment the government does not have either a strategy or its own effective action program," Zyuganov said.

Later he also told journalists that he did not rule out the possibility of the State Duma election being postponed because of the "search for a successor".

"Neither would I be surprised if the parliamentary election were to be brought forward in order to allow more time between the Duma election and the presidential election for working on public opinion," the CPRF leader concluded.