Senior Coalition figures say that the government has been ‘shaken’ by the resignation of First Deputy Prime Minister, and stalwart of the party, Dmitry Lebedev. Mr Lebedev said in a landmark interview on Wednesday, after announcing his resignation, that he believed “someone has to take responsibility for what happened. If the Prime Minister won’t do that, then I will.” Quitting his position, the former minister and campaign manager for the Centrists has ignited a fiery debate which has consumed the party over the past few days. “When a party does this badly in a national election it doesn’t matter what happened a year ago” said Mr Lebedev referring to the majority which Asta Dahn won in 2018, “That’s not enough. We have to do more. This government has to find a way to move forward but it won’t if it has its head in the sand.”
Lebedev has been a top figure in the party for over a decade, running the election campaigns of former President and Prime Minister Koruin Gruaman before joining the government as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Energy under Ludvig Fedorov in 2011, before being appointed as Minister for Defence and Disaster Relief. He was elevated to First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister when Asta Dahn won the legislative elections last year, but was later replaced as the latter by Fabian Meyer after underperforming in the role. He was a visible force on the election trail for November’s presidential race, but made a series of recorded comments which were seen to damage the party. Taking responsibility for the campaign, he said that he did not want Ms Dahn to be replaced as Prime Minister, but said the party should consider replacing her as party leader.
“This isn’t about her own mandate as head of government, it’s about our party and how we failed to even come second in the presidential election. She has to take some responsibility for that – she is the party leader. In the last few weeks I’ve seen nothing, heard nothing and felt nothing has changed from the Prime Minister and I can’t sit back and watch that anymore”, said Lebedev in a one-to-one interview on PTV on Wednesday night. “People felt we had the wrong candidate and the wrong platform, the Prime Minister has to face some criticism for that, but obviously it is on Katrina that we didn’t win” he added, referring to the party’s candidate, Katrina Fischer, who has since left the national stage and returned to her home in Béspura.
The Prime Minister is yet to respond in public to Mr Lebedev’s resignation and the election result, but issued a written statement stating that she “regretted the events of the past few weeks” and had “resolved to make changes and do better in the year ahead”. Close allies of the party leader say that Dahn has struggled to adapt to the criticism she has faced since taking up the role and was considering making a large change to her executive cabinet in the first half of next year. She is now expected to act quicker – with the task of replacing Mr Lebedev as First Deputy Prime Minister and help shore up a nervous team of representatives.
