Mayor Yury Luzhkov fired back Friday in a war of words with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, appealing to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to help resolve a conflict that developed over city officials’ salaries.
“I can attest that Kudrin, presenting his report in the State Duma on the 2010 budget, was, to put it mildly, imprecise in his wording,” Luzhkov said. “He must have simply mixed up his figures of the 2009 budget planned before the crisis with the ones that were actually used.
“Actually, city funds spent on management rose only 3 percent compared with 2008, not 24 percent, as Kudrin says,” he said.
Addressing a State Duma working group Thursday, Kudrin said expenses for Moscow officials had risen 24 percent this year.
Kudrin stood by his figures Saturday, telling Vesti-24 state television that they came from a financial report submitted by Moscow City Hall to the Finance Ministry on Oct. 14. “This is not a figure that I invented. Under these figures is the official signature of Moscow’s City Hall,” Kudrin said.
Kudrin’s comments marked a rare sally into disputes on the regional level, and they come as Luzhkov faces pressure that critics say might be part of an effort to force him to resign.
The mayor faced new criticism Saturday, with Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky calling on President Dmitry Medvedev to dismiss him over disputed City Duma elections on Oct. 11. Zhirinovsky, who spoke to reporters after a meeting between Medvedev and State Duma leaders, also said the leadership of the Moscow region should be fired and the capital and the region merged into a “federal center” with a chief executive appointed by the Kremlin.
Opposition parties and independent election observers have criticized the Oct. 11 elections as rigged. United Russia took 32 of the 35 seats in the Moscow City Duma.
The new City Duma received a letter from Luzhkov on Friday in which the mayor “categorically denies the accusation” by Kudrin, Deputy Nikolai Gonchar said. Luzhkov, who has denied the suggestion that he might be forced out of office, said Friday that he also sent letters to the State Duma and Putin.