The Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation (lang-rus Председатель Государственной Думы Федерального собрания Российской Федерации), also called Speaker (спикер), is the presiding officer of the lower house of the Russian parliament. His responsibilities include the overseeing the day-to-day business of the State Duma, presiding and maintaining order at the regular sessions of the parliament. The Speaker also chairs the Council of the Duma which includes representatives from all the parliamentary parties and determines the legislative agenda.

The Speaker of the Duma may intervene and express his views but is supposed to be unbiased in his activities at the regular sessions of the parliament.

Since January 1995, the speaker of the State Duma is also a member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

[edit] Speakers of the State Duma, 1994-

#	Name	Picture	Took office	Left office	Political Party	Term
1	Ivan Rybkin		January 14, 1994	January 17, 1996	Agrarian Party of Russia	1
2	Gennadiy Seleznyov		January 17, 1996	January 18, 2000	Communist Party of Russian Federation (prior June 4, 2002)	2
			January 18, 2000	December 29, 2003		3
					Non-partisan / Independent (June 4, 2002 - October 29, 2002)
					Non-partisan / Party of Russia's Rebirth (since October 29, 2002)
3	Boris Gryzlov		December 29, 2003	December 24, 2007	United Russia	4
			December 24, 2007	Incumbent		5

[edit] The Fathers of the house who started the new legislatures

Traditionally when a new Russian parliament is formed the eldest deputy opens and leads the first session until a chairman or a speaker is elected. In the history of the post-Soviet Dumas these were

Year	Name	Born
1994	Georgy Lukawa	1924
1996	Grigory Galaziy	1925
2000	Yegor Ligachev	1920
2003	Valentin Varennikov	1923[1]
2007	Zhores Alferov	1930[2]

[edit] References

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