Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, one of the four presidential candidates, pledged on Monday to carry out a series of dramatic social reforms including minimum wage raise if he wins the upcoming election.
Social reforms would entail increased minimum wage, which will be raised to 10,000 rubles (408.50 U.S. dollars) to 12,000 rubles (490.20 U.S. dollars), and the minimum pensions will grow 3 to 5 fold, Itar-Tass news agency quoted Zyuganov as saying.
The communist leader unveiled his election program at a press conference here on Monday, saying the housing rent must be restricted to 10 percent of the family's overall income.
He declared the need for redistributing federal budget funds.
"Fifteen percent of budget spending must be invested in rural areas, and the financing of science, increased to 8 percent of the overall spending," he said.
Zyuganov also proposed to set up a special government commission so as to launch a program named Children of Russia in a bid to solve the problem of orphaned, runaway and homeless children.
As for the foreign policy, Zyuganov is confident that he would be able to unite Russia and Belarus "as early as tomorrow."
The Russian presidential election is scheduled to be held on March 2. A one-month-long campaign for the election was officially launched on Monday.
Russia's national media will grant seven free hours for advertising clips and TV debates for each of the four registered candidates.
The four candidates are First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and Democratic Partyleader Andrei Bogdanov.
Medvedev, who has been publicly backed by President Putin and the ruling United Russia party, has refused to take part in TV debates, saying he will continue his daily job.
Source:Xinhua
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