MOSCOW – The chairman of Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, has resigned from his post as speaker of the lower house of Parliament in an apparent effort to quell some of the uproar over perceived fraud in recent parliamentary elections.
Boris V Gryzlov, is the highest ranking official in United Russia after Vladimir Putin, who serves as the party’s leader but is not a member. Intensely loyal to Mr Putin during his eight years as speaker, Mr Gryzlov played a crucial role in pacifying the Russian parliament or duma, which he once famously said “was no place for political battles”.
Mr Gryzlov’s decision underscores the pressure on United Russia, which lost its constitutional majority in elections this month, officially gaining 50 per cent of the vote. Even that result has been called into question amid widespread accusations that the party engaged in ballot-stuffing and other fraud.
In a statement on United Russia’s website, Mr Gryzlov gave no specifics about the reason for his departure. He said he would remain United Russia’s chairman but would not take a seat in parliament.
“Having worked in the state duma for eight years in a row, I have been able achieve much of what was intended and much of what my colleagues and I planned to do,” he said. “And while the law imposes no restrictions, at the moment I will not be going into the state duma, believing it inappropriate to remain the speaker of the chamber for more than two terms in a row.”
It was not immediately known who would replace him as speaker. The decision came in the wake of a huge anti-Kremlin protest in Moscow last weekend, in which tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered to express frustration with United Russia and its alleged complicity in election fraud.
However, the party has been steadily losing support in the last year, amid frustrations over widespread corruption in Russian society and a perception that government officials, particularly from United Russia, were profiting from a lack of oversight into their affairs.
An internet meme referring to United Russia as the “party of crooks and thieves” has become so well known that it is now commonly seen on T-shirts and bumper stickers in Moscow. – (New York Times)