“The initiative of Russian government’s early resignation comes from the President,” some Russian MPs think

Georgi Tikhonov, former CIS affairs committee chairman at Russia’s State Duma (Lower House of Parliament) has shares his views with Pravda.Ru. In a yesterday’s interview, he, in particular, said the following. “I think it’s time to swap this government – it absolutely fails to conduct a policy Putin seems to want it to. This government is that of Yeltsin’s old team. A government which includes such persons as Gref, Kudrin, Kasyanov, is a government of the past. They have taken money from the West resulting in $70bn of debts – this story began with Chubais, Shokhin, Chernomyrdin, and Kasyanov himself. Where has all this money gone? When there was the Soviet Union, foreign countries were owing us $147bn. By now, according to Kasyanov, they owe us only some $68bn. Where has the rest of the debts gone? I’ve got the feeling that the initiative of the government’s resignation comes not from the Duma, but from Putin. Because Putin, as he seems to have been trained, wants all things done by someone else. He knows popular discontent with the government and lets elected representatives of the people take the decision. All this looks smart enough. Yesterday’s statements, voiced by the Yedinstvo chairman, corroborates this – they always act at the command. It looks like they have already started to fight for portfolios. If Yedinstvo backs the resignation, they are sure to offer Putin their candidatures.”

Written by Inna Novikova Pravda.Ru