| MOSCOW, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Outraged politicians vying
for seats in Russia's
parliament have called for nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky to be
disqualified from television debates after his live appearance degenerated
into a fistfight.
Passions boiled over after a Friday night talk show in what has up until
now
been a lacklustre campaign for the election, viewed as a pointer for
President Vladimir Putin's national standing ahead of his expected bid
for a
second term next year.
The pro-Putin United Russia party leads polls, with the opposition
Communists about six points behind in the race for 450 seats in the State
Duma lower house. Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democrats, apparently aided by
his
voluble appearances, lies third with about eight percent of the vote --
over
the five percent needed to elect members on national party lists.
On Friday, Zhirinovsky stridently accused his opponents from right and
left
of the country's every ill, ranging from betrayal of Russia's interests
in
Chechnya to a low birth rate.
After launching a particularly virulent attack on one rival -- who even
got
up to try to snatch the microphone -- Zhirinovsky promised to give him
a
pasting after the show.
According to an account afterwards by Ekho Moskvy radio, once live coverage
of NTV's "Freedom of Speech" show had ended, Zhirinovsky started
taunting
the guest from the left-wing Rodina (Motherland) party, saying he was
sure
to run away.
"But he didn't," Ekho Moskvy said on Saturday.
Footage of the incident broadcast later, showed men in suits scuffling
and
occasionally landing punches as they left the set.
Boris Nemtsov of the pro-market Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS), said
Zhirinovsky should be barred from future debates.
"Decent people feel nothing but loathing and disgust for all this,"
Nemtsov, who had a glass of orange juice tossed in his face by Zhirinovsky
in a mid-1990s debate, told Ekho Moskvy.
Sergei Mitrokhin of
Yabloko, another liberal party, was also involved in the melee and echoed
calls for a ban.
Zhirinovsky dismissed the incident as unimportant.
"A lot of people were leaving, there was a big crowd, somebody
probably
simply pushed somebody else aside, trying to get out first," he told
Ekho
Moskvy.
See also:
State Duma elections
2003
NTV channel, "Freedom of Speech" programme, November 21, 2003. "Russian
economic miracle. Will it ever happen?"
| 