| MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Two prominent liberals, whose parties
fared disastrously
in December parliamentary polls, won senior state posts on Friday in a
sign
from the Kremlin it did not want to marginalize the political opposition.
The Duma made the first such nominations to largely ceremonial posts,
naming a Yabloko leader, Vladimir
Lukin, who was the country's first post-Soviet ambassador to the United
States, as the new human rights commissioner.
It also named prominent Union of Right Forces member Yelena Mizulina
as its
representative in the Constitutional Court.
By law, Lukin must suspend his party membership in the next two weeks,
and
Mizulina was quoted by Interfax as saying she was ready to suspend her
membership, too, if it interfered with her new job.
|
