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Press release on 20.01.2000
 
The first defeat of Vladimir Putin: 82% of listeners of the "Ekho Moskvi" radio station would prefer Grigory Yavlinsky to Vladimir Putin. Results of an interactive poll.

The listeners, who called the "Ekho Moskvi" radio station on January 20, 2000 to participate in a poll, indicated that they would vote for Grigory Yavlinsky (82%) rather than Vladimir Putin (18%), if the second round of the presidential elections was held today.

The broadcast arguments of the listeners voting against Putin can be summed up as follows: "he unleashed the war in Chechnya", "he used military actions in an electoral campaign", "he was and still is a KGB man".

Yavlinsky was characterised as a politician capable of withstanding the hasty actions of the authorities and really extricate the country from the current crisis.

"This is the first poll, where Vladimir Putin has suffered a large defeat." That is how Alexei Melnikov, deputy of the Yabloko faction in the State Duma, reacted to the results of the poll at the "Ekho Moskvi" radio station. He added: "This is the initial reaction of the politically active part of society to the union between the pro-government and communist factions in the State Duma."

This telephone express-poll, conducted as part of the "Rikoshet"programme, was on Thursday at midday: the radio station received 6,595 telephone calls.

"Ekho Moskvi" broadcasts its programmes to 40 cities in Russia, the CIS countries, the Baltic states and the USA.

At the moment this poll can be found at the "Ekho Moskvi" site.

 

"Yabloko, Fatherland - All Russia and the Union of Right-Wing Forces did not receive
any official reactionfrom Vladimir Putin on the Duma conflict",
stated Sergei Ivanenko.

The issue surrounding the actual reaction of the acting President of the RF Vladimir Putin on the conflict in the State Duma remains open.

"We have still not heard him (Vladimir Putin) speaking about this directly: we have merely heard interpretations from other people. But if he thinks that this is normal or considers that this situation should remain unchanged in future, then we shall draw our own conclusions”, the Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko faction Sergei Ivanenko told journalists on January 20, 2000.

As Grigory Yavlinsky was not present, Sergei Ivanenko participated in the meeting of the Co-ordination Council of the three factions today.

Fatherland – All Russia was represented by its leader Evgeni Primakov and the Union of Right-Wing Forces was represented by its leader Sergei Kiryenko. Sergei Ivanenko said that the position adopted by the three factions should not be interpreted as a desire to obtain some posts in the Duma through this action: “Our protest is connected to the style that has been engrained in the Duma, when the interests of the parliamentary minority are totally neglected, the style of dictatorship and neglect of the will of 18 million voters who brought us to parliament”.

He also noted that the package of priority draft laws that had been developed by the working group on the legislature of the three factions would comprise five to seven documents.

One of them had already been agreed upon.

According to Ivanenko, it concerns amendments to the law on the status of the deputy of the State Duma that envisage a “reduction of the level of deputy’s immunity and elimination of benefits and privileges”.

Asking how the three factions are going to submit their draft laws if they continue the boycott of Duma meetings, Sergei Ivanenko said that there is a certain procedure for introducing draft laws, and that any deputy can do it. This procedure does not stipulate personal participation in the Duma meeting by the deputies.

Based on Interfax reports.