Putin oppose communist initiative for government dissolution

Speaking at a youth camp President Vladimir Putin has hinted that he was not planning to sack the government in the foreseeable future and said that he was satisfied by its work.

Members of the youth political forum asked the president if he supported the initiative of the Russian Communist Party to dissolve the government that is currently in the preparatory stage, but can be forwarded at the forthcoming fall session of the Lower House.

Putin answered that as the head of the state he must be strict with his subordinates, but also be just to them, and added that “justly speaking, the government as a whole was correctly performing its function”.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation earlier demanded that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev sacked several federal ministers, in particular the heads of the education, finance and health ministries, and threatened to start a formal procedure of government dissolution if these condition were not met.

A positive parliamentary vote on government dissolution can be rejected by the president and the repeated voting in favor of such a move gives the head of the state the right to dissolve the Lower House.

The majority of seats in the Lower House are occupied by the United Russia party which is headed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the communists are unlikely to find support for their initiative.