LDPR initiative to change title of president to 'supreme leader' in Russian constitution fails to receive support of Duma committee
MOSCOW. Feb 20 (Interfax) - The Russian State Duma Committee on State Building and Legislation rejected the Liberal Democratic Party's (LDPR) proposal to change the title of president to "supreme leader" at a meeting on Wednesday.
"It was proposed that the word 'president' be removed from the constitution and replaced with the phrase 'supreme leader.' Other names could be considered, but the idea is to remove foreign words from the fundamental law," State Duma Vice-Speaker Igor Lebedev (LDPR) said at the committee meeting.
In his words, the amendment was proposed for Article 80 of the constitution, which pertains to presidential activity.
"The proposal has been put forward by Vladimir Volfovich [Zhirinovsky] on multiple occasions; it concerns not only this particular article of the constitution, but also the need to clear our great and mighty Russian language of foreign words," Lebedev said.
The committee denied support to the LDPR's proposal.