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Communist Party proposes Melnikov as new Duma speaker

"The post of speaker should be given to the opposition for the sake of more successful and further democratic development of the country," Lebedev said

MOSCOW, December 5 (Itar-Tass) —— The Communist Party has proposed Ivan Melnikov as a new State Duma speaker.

“We have our own candidate [for the post of speaker], and I think it’s the strongest one among the new Duma members,” Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said on Monday, December 5.

“It is Ivan Ivanovich Melnikov. They will not find a more professional and prepared person. This is why we will propose [him] and hope that Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party] and Mironov’s [Just Russia] will support our proposal. In that case it will be harder for United Russia to refuse and they will agree,” Zyuganov said.

Igor Lebedev, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party’s faction in the previous Duma, said earlier in the day that the parliamentary opposition – the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and Just Russia – suggest nominating a single candidate for the post.

The post of speaker should be given to the opposition for the sake of more successful and further democratic development of the country,” Lebedev said.

He believes that by so doing the authorities will avoid concentrating all power in the same hands and repeating the mistake of the Soviet Communist Party.