Russian President Vladimir Putin will not take a seat in the next Russian parliament, even though he led the ticket of the party that won the overwhelming majority of seats, a Central Elections Commission official said yesterday.

Putin, who is constitutionally obliged to step down as president next year, headed the party list of United Russia, which won 315 of the State Duma's 450 seats in December 2 national elections. But ticket members are not obliged to take seats.

Central Elections Commission secretary Nikolai Konkin was quoted by the Interfax and ITAR-TASS news agencies as saying that Putin's mandate has been handed over to a United Russia member from the Far Eastern region of Magadan.

Putin this week gave his endorsement to First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in the presidential contest. Medvedev in turn proposed that Putin become prime minister. Putin has not publicly responded to that proposal.

Meanwhile, a Kremlin briefing paper released yesterday said that a constitutional act on merging Russia and Belarus is not on the agenda for a meeting to be attended by the two countries' presidents.

Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Minsk yesterday for a meeting with Belarus' president that many observers had speculated would move forward long-dormant plans to form a union state of the former Soviet republics.

The denial has dampened speculations that Putin could return to power as leader of a newly formed country.

Agencies

(China Daily 12/14/2007 page7)