MOSCOW Feb. 12 (Interfax) -- Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov called on Monday for the complete or partial replacement of Russia's "helpless, weak-willed, inefficient and not very responsible" government.
There should be a "clear economic strategy" and then a "competent" government should be put together to carry it out, Zyuganov said. The government has increasingly been demonstrating "helplessness" on essential issues, he said to Interfax.
Examples are its "inability" to handle the energy crisis in Primorye and other regions, its "inarticulate position" on the country's foreign debt, its "incorrect and harmful" decision to decommission Space Station Mir.
In an open letter to President Vladimir Putin sent last week, Zyuganov urged the president to prevent the deorbiting of Mir. "The U.S. leadership's firm decision to deploy a national missile defense system is making one look at the problem of the orbital complex Mir from an absolutely different angle. Russia's equitable cooperation with the U.S. within the framework of the International Space Station project is becoming increasingly problematical," Zyuganov wrote.
Taking this situation into account, the Russian leadership must mothball Mir in orbit, Zyuganov wrote. The parliament, the trade unions, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the cosmonauts are all against Mir's dumping. Only the government's financiers, who have frozen the funding of the space program, have come out for crashing the station, Zyuganov wrote.
With Russian inflation at a rate Zyuganov called two or three times higher than forecast, he challenged the president to make a decision: "Our government is helpless, weak-willed, inefficient and not very responsible and it needs to be strengthened," Zyuganov said. "Each [Cabinet] grouping is defending its own private interests. [Economic Development and Trade Minister] German Gref is suggesting one thing, [Prime Minister] Mikhail Kasyanov another, [Deputy Prime Minister] Ilya Klebanov something else. We don't have a government for everyone.
"What needs to be done now is [to put] together an efficient and professionally competent government. What most of all needs to be done for this is [to put] together some of the most influential forces in the country and choose an economic strategy for the executive branch."
Zyuganov went on to say he had expected that after the State Council has seen the government's economic program then implementation mechanisms should urgently worked out to execute it, and "the strengthening of the government would begin."
"But I don't see this," he said.
But dismissing the government will not solve all the problems, Zyuganov said. "One can keep it (the government) or form a new one, but what will they do? First of all, a clear economic strategy needs to be worked out and only then should an efficient, competent and professional team be selected to match it."
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