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Duma speaker says former official's call for early presidential elections could ‘destabilize society’
Sergei Neverov, the deputy speaker of the Duma, says comments by former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin about holding early presidential elections in Russia might “constitute an attempt to destabilize society.” According to Neverov, there are absolutely no grounds for changing the date of the election, which is currently scheduled to take place in March 2018.
Vladimr Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment on Kudrin’s proposal, saying, “This is something new that political experts will probably be discussing with a host of other ideas.” Peskov also said that he does not know if Kudrin discussed the idea with Putin.
According to the news website Gazeta.ru, a source in the Kremlin called Kudrin’s proposal “a bunch of foolishness.”
Addressing the 2016 parliamentary elections [which the Duma is in the process of moving from December to September], Neverov pointed out that voting will be combined with elections for regional legislatures and governors, negating any talk of “snap elections.”
- At an economic forum today in St. Petersburg, Alexei Kudrin proposed early presidential elections in Russia, citing the example of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Kudrin says early elections helped Nazarbayev begin needed structural reforms earlier than might otherwise have been possible.