...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile...Faction leader Sergei Mironov led his deputies out of the chamber in protest at Putin's response to a question about a mayoral vote in the southern city of Astrakhan that his party says was rigged and prompted the local candidate to go on hunger strike.
Putin replied he had no authority to intervene in the case and urged the candidate to go to court. He also question why the hunger strike was declared before any appeal had been filed.
Mironov "gave the order to leave the chamber because of Putin's rudeness," A Just Russia deputy Ilya Ponomaryov tweeted moments after the incumbent prime minister's answer.
"We were not satisfied with the prime minister's response," Interfax later quoted Mironov as saying.
Putin then went on to answer the next question from another politician without commenting on the incident.