A congress of the United Russia ruling party due in October 2013 may be held without its founder and moral leader Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will be the sole chairman of the congress, Novye Izvestia daily reported.
Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov stated about Putin’s intention not to participate in the congress. Now Vladimir Putin is formally the head of another movement People’s Front For Russia. The movement was registered in the Russian Justice Ministry in September. The 14th congress of the United Russia party will be held in Moscow on October 3-5.
The main day of the United Russia congress is October 5, when chairman of the party Dmitry Medvedev will deliver the main report, Kommersant daily reported. The leader of the party will sum up the results of the local elections on September 8 that United Russia had already named successful for the party. In particular, they succeeded to increase the level of support of voters in several administrative centres, where they had achieved low results at the elections in the State Duma lower house of Russia’s parliament in 2011.
This time Dmitry Medvedev will deliver a report at the party’s congress as the sole leader of the party. In reply to Kommersant’s question whether Vladimir Putin plans to attend the United Russia congress, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said, “No, he does not plan to do it yet.”
United Russia says that the party would like to see Vladimir Putin at the congress and does not rule out that he will participate in it.
Meanwhile, the Communist Party of Russia plans to pass a no-confidence motion to Medvedev’s government on the day, when the budget for 2014-2016 will be put up for voting in the second half of October, Izvestia daily reported.
The Communists decided to take advantage of Vladimir Putin’s promise to consider any public initiative, which will raise 100,000 signatures of Russian citizens. At the present moment two million people signed up for a no-confidence motion to the incumbent government.
“We will not stop at this, we will continue the signup campaign. We are not satisfied with the draft budget prepared by the government that cuts sharply social spending. So, as soon as this document is submitted in the State Duma, we will immediately move in the State Duma Council our bill over government’s dismissal so that these issues will be considered in one day,” deputy and head of the legal service of the Communist faction Vadim Solovyev added.
Vadim Solovyev does not cherish any illusions that the no-confidence motion can be approved at the first attempt. However, he noted that along with two million signatures of people for the dismissal of the government 101 deputies of the lower house of parliament had already supported the dismissal. According to the legislation, just 90 signatures of deputies are enough to put a no-confidence motion on the parliamentary agenda. But a majority of 226 votes of lawmakers are needed at the vote on government’s dismissal. The Communists hope that not only representatives of the State Duma opposition, but also members from the United Russia faction from the People’s Front For Russia headed by Vladimir Putin will support them.