PRESIDENTIAL REPRESENTATIVE FINDS NO-CONFIDENCE VOTE RESULTS 'PREDICTABLE'








MOSCOW, March 14, 2001 /Arina Dovgan, RIA Novosti Correspondent/ -- Alexander Kotenkov, presidential representative in the lower house of parliament, called the results of the vote of no confidence in the government "predictable". According to Kotenkov, he had only been mistaken by a few votes when he predicted the vote results. Kotenkov had previously predicted that the vote of no confidence would be backed by 130 deputies, but the no-confidence statement collected 127 votes.


	Responding to Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov's comments that only 76 deputies had backed the government, Kotenkov pointed out that "this [was] [the Communists'] face-saving exercise". According to him, no matter how the Communists now "skew the facts, the facts are evident".