Russian deputies yesterday rejected the nomination of Mr Sergei Kiriyenko as prime minister, the young technocrat seeing his support crumble compared to the result of a first confirmation ballot a week ago.
Mr Kiriyenko, plucked by President Boris Yeltsin from relative obscurity last month to form a new government, mustered just 115 votes in the 450-seat State Duma, with 271 deputies voting against. Eleven deputies abstained. A week ago he won 143 votes. Kremlin officials said Mr Yeltsin had prepared the necessary papers to resubmit Mr Kiriyenko's nomination for a decisive third round next week. If the Duma, which is dominated by communists and their allies, rejects Mr Yeltsin's choice for prime minister three times, the President can dissolve it and call early elections.
Addressing a news conference after the vote, Mr Kiriyenko said he would not "haggle" with the opposition over cabinet jobs or change basic policy to win parliamentary approval. "I'm not interested in political games. I'm not going to haggle with anyone.
"I won't guarantee anyone employment in the government . . . There is a programme that has been put forward and it won't be changed," he added, saying he knew that if he were ready to make such deals he could easily win the necessary Duma majority.
Asked how he felt, he replied: "I feel fine, although I feel a little tired of pointless discussions."
Meanwhile in Washington, the Russian Minister Without Portfolio, Mr Yevgeny Yasin, said he expected the Duma to approve Mr Kiriyenko in a third and final vote.
"He will be accepted," Mr Yasin said on the fringes of the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington.
Many rank-and-file opposition deputies seem set against voting for their own redundancy, which is what rejecting Mr Kiriyenko would mean, so their leaders may be under pressure to find a facesaving way to avert a collision.
Opinion polls suggest the opposition would not fare much worse than in December 1995 if new elections were held.
But ordinary deputies, fond of the privileges of office, do not seem keen on hastening the uncertain period of a new vote, which is not due until the end of next year.
Mr Kiriyenko said yesterday that Mr Yeltsin had given him instructions for the Russian government to carry out while the President is in Japan for a weekend summit.
There was no formal procedure, Mr Kiriyenko said, for a handover of presidential duties after Mr Yeltsin's departure last night to meet the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto, and he would be able to contact the President at all times for more instructions. The constitution establishes that the prime minister takes over as head of state in the event of the president dying or being incapacitated. But officials, including the head of the Constitutional Court, have said that Mr Kiriyenko cannot be considered prime minister unless he is endorsed by parliament.
The EU yesterday urged Latvia's parliament to quickly enact a government plan to speed up integration of the country's Russian minority.
"The European Union has a strong interest in a satisfactory resolution of the differences over the treatment of non-Latvian citizens in Latvia," it said in a statement issued by the British presidency.
Russia has threatened to apply economic sanctions against the Baltic state over its refusal to give automatic citizenship to its 700,000 Russian speakers, more than a quarter of the population, who mainly emigrated to the Baltic state after it was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940.