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DUMA SPEAKER TO SUSPEND COMMUNIST PARTY MEMBERSHIP?
MOSCOW, MARCH 24, 2002. /RIA Novosti correspondent/ -- Gennady Seleznev may suspend Communist Party membership for his term of State Duma Speaker, leader of the Russian parliament's lower house said in an interview with the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper.
He will not make the step, however, unless it is stipulated by the Duma regulations or, better still, in the law on the parliamentarian's status. If the arrangement gets on a formal footing, no Duma Speaker will be "a plaything of particular political forces." A campaign is underway in the Duma to put Seleznev down. The Speaker must be above political parties, argue its activists as they strongly come down on the present Speaker as communist.
Mr. Seleznev thinks the present situation smacks of political witch-hunt, especially when he is attacked for his vote on particular bills. "I abstain from voting on most cases because a Speaker ought to vote only when an equal vote comes out otherwise - when the fate of a bill really depends on his one vote," he said.
A Speaker's neutrality helps him to lead a search for necessary compromises, added Seleznev.
A Speaker ought to cling to his stances irrespective of public opinions and passing moods, and his status requires to add related procedures to the house regulations, and a clause supplemented to the respective legal act, he pointed out.
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