STRASBOURG, January 26 (RIA Novosti, Kristina Rodriguez) - One of Russia's most controversial politicians again landed himself in hot water Thursday for an outburst at a leading European institution.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, had his microphone switched off for a second time in two days at a session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for making "unacceptable" comments during an exchange of words with the head of the Georgian delegation to the forum.
Georgy Bokeria was criticizing the regime of Belarusian President Lukashenko, who the U.S. State Department has branded "the last dictator in Europe", when Zhirinovsky advised the Georgians to take a look at their own prisons. "They are overcrowded with democrats!" he contended.
"Belarus does not want [President Mikheil] Saakashvili! It wants Lukashenko," said Zhirinovsky, who is also a deputy speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament. He has frequently criticized the Georgian leader, who came to power on the back of popular protests in the winter of 2004, for authoritarian anti-Russian tendencies he has supposedly since displayed.
Although Zhirinovsky's tirades have been something of a common occurrence in his homeland, the European speaker was less indulgent toward him and turned off his microphone.
On Wednesday, when an anti-communist resolution in the chamber was being considered, the politician advised PACE to arrest Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov and send him to The Hague to stand trial. The LDPR leader then lambasted the resolution, calling it "weak", which led to the speaker intervening and pulling the plug.
