March 12, 2008	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 3, 1429

MOSCOW, March 11: President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday held a surprise meeting in the Kremlin with a leader of Russia’s beleaguered liberal opposition, Grigory Yavlinsky, state television showed.

“They discussed various questions of the country’s socio-economic development,” the Kremlin website said in a two-line statement.

Yavlinsky, who heads the liberal, pro-western Yabloko party, rarely meets Putin and has been largely squeezed out of political life.

In the latest parliamentary poll, held last December, no liberal candidates gained seats. Putin’s United Russia party got 64 per cent of the vote, followed by the Communists and two pro-Kremlin parties.

Putin’s successor, Dmitry Medvedev, won a landslide presidential election on March 2 and has indicated he favours a more liberal policy than Putin.

The meeting with Yavlinksy came amid pressure from within United Russia for “a constructive opposition,” Kommersant quoted party sources as saying.—AFP