Putin lands premiership in lopsided vote
Posted on Friday, May 9, 2008
MOSCOW — Russia’s parliament overwhelmingly confirmed Vladimir Putin as prime minister Thursday, completing his departure from the presidency in a manner that left him the country’s dominant politician.
Putin, out of office only a day, received 392 votes in the 450-seat Duma, parliament’s lower house, before the resolution confirming his new post was handed to his protege and presidential successor, Dmitry Medvedev, who promptly accepted it.
Only 56 members of parliament, all Communists, voted against the appointment. Their party leader issued a scathing assessment of Putin’s eight years of rule, saying they were marked by lost opportunities. Two members of parliament were not present.
The dissenting speech was broadcast live on national television — unusual in a country where criticism of Putin has been blocked from television for years.
But Putin, secure with the guarantee of 315 votes from United Russia, the party he leads, once again commanded the stage. Before the vote, he delivered a 45-minute speech proposing a series of domestic policy initiatives. While the speech included many of Medvedev’s campaign themes, it was largely indistinguishable from Putin’s presidential addresses over his two terms.
“Great and grandiose tasks lie before us,” he said, addressing a legislature under his control. Medvedev sat silently.
The proposals included efforts to reduce double-digit inflation; legislation to create tax breaks for education, housing and medical costs; and more government spending for housing, infrastructure and military equipment.
He also proposed tax reductions for the oil sector and a law to stop corporate raiding and said his government would work to revive agriculture and spur domestic food production.
As much as 70 percent of the food in Russia’s major cities is imported, he said, suggesting that costs for staples were especially vulnerable to inflation in a time of rising global transportation costs. “To lower prices, we must increase our production,” he said.
Putin, 55, suggested that he would move quickly and that legislators would receive draft legislation in August with the details of his proposals.
Medvedev, 42, was sworn in as Russia’s third post-Soviet president Wednesday. His path to office had been assured since December, when Putin, who under the Constitution could not seek a third consecutive term, endorsed him.
In Washington on Thursday, the State Department said Russia had ordered the expulsion of two U. S. military attaches working at the U. S. embassy in Moscow. “We believe that the expulsions were not justified,” Sean McCormack, a department spokesman, said at a midday briefing. “But as we all know, in the world of diplomacy, sometimes these things happen from time to time.” He said department officials were not making “any particular connection” between the expulsion of the military attaches and earlier dust-ups between Washington and Moscow.
In Moscow, there was no public indication of the shape of the new government or of the assignments of the ministers and powerful advisers who had made up Putin’s entourage.
Although Putin spoke at length about prosperity, he passed more quickly and in less detail over the country’s problems with corruption, which one legislator called “a scourge.” Putin also sat through a rare and harsh public critique, as Gennadi Zyuganov, the leader of the Communist Party, explained to parliament why his party would not support Putin as prime minister.
Zyuganov attacked Putin’s record as president both broadly and in detail. He opened by pointing out what he regarded as successes, including the defeat of separatists in Chechnya and the unification of much of the country. Then he attacked.
“We assess the situation as very grave and the prevailing trends as threatening,” he said.
During Putin’s rule, Zyuganov said, Russia’s population declined and many highly educated citizens moved away. Food and utility prices have climbed, he said, and infrastructure, factories and heavy machinery have fallen into disrepair.
He ended his speech firmly. “We cannot support you,” he said. “We shall vote against.” Zyuganov’s address, issued hurriedly, had little effect. A few minutes later, Putin received most of the votes in the chamber. The legislators rose to their feet for a standing ovation. Information for this article was contributed from Washington by David Stout and Helene Cooper of The New York Times.
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