The Russian parliament called on President Boris Yeltsin yesterday to resign for failing to pull the country out of its financial crisis and caving in to pressure to devalue the rouble.
In an emergency session convened by deputies seeking an explanation for the government's handling of a four-month economic storm, the State Duma (lower house) voted 245 to 32 in favour of Mr Yeltsin paying the ultimate penalty for Russia's economic despair.
"A resignation of the President is not just overdue, it is 10 times overdue," declared the Communist Party leader, Mr Gennady Zyuganov. "I think it would be decent for Yeltsin and his whole circle to resign."
Mr Yeltsin, who chose not to attend the session and was instead visiting a naval base near the far north city of Murmansk, brushed aside the Duma's demands.
"It's a routine procedure," Mr Yeltsin said. "But don't forget, there is still a President."
Under the Russian constitution, the president can simply ignore resignation calls even if deputies vote through the resolution.
Leaders of all political persuasions also urged the Prime Minister, Mr Sergei Kiriyenko, to step down and hand over control of Russia to a coalition government that includes his left-wing opponents.
Mr Kiriyenko and his top aides sombrely took turns at the Duma podium to defend their efforts to plug holes in the economy, and defied anybody else to do better.
They promised to continue acting in the interests of the Russian people and their currency.
But deputies, furious that the cabinet gave up its fight to defend a strong currency and effectively devalued the rouble last Monday, remained sceptical that either Mr Yeltsin or Mr Kiriyenko's team was on the right track.
Even former cabinet allies such as Mr Alexander Shokhin, a powerful deputy speaker of parliament and leader of the centrist Our Home Is Russia bloc which has hitherto backed Mr Kiriyenko, said a change in leadership was due.
But Mr Kiriyenko and his team held ground, saying neither they nor the President were going anywhere until the country's economy was pulled from its despair.
Mr Kiriyenko, in office since March, opened his defence by quickly warning deputies that there were no political forces in Russia which could conjure a quick fix for the economy.
"We are only at the start of the financial crisis," Mr Kiriyenko said. "We will have to take further difficult decisions. We cannot be a popular government".
The Prime Minister overrode parliamentary opposition last month to enforce a tough austerity package in an effort to ease a government fiscal crisis which has touched off months of market turmoil.
But analysts insist a parliamentary vote in favour of the package, which includes key tax and revenue raising reforms, would help restore evaporating confidence.