Vyacheslav Volodin Elected for Record Third Term as State Duma Speaker

MOSCOW, September 30. /TASS/. Vyacheslav Volodin has become the first State Duma Speaker to lead the lower house for more than two consecutive terms. He previously held the post in the seventh and eighth State Duma.

On Wednesday, at the first plenary session of the ninth State Duma, deputies elected Vyacheslav Volodin as house speaker. A total of 406 out of 442 deputies voted in favor of the decision. Volodin was nominated by the United Russia faction.

Volodin first took the speaker’s seat in 2016 in the 7th State Duma and retained the post in the eighth Duma in 2021. By 2024, he had set the record for the longest tenure as State Duma speaker. Under Gennady Seleznev and Boris Gryzlov - who also led the Duma for two terms each - the lower house's term lasted four years. Consequently, they each held the speaker’s post for a total of approximately eight years: Seleznev from January 1996 to December 2003, and Gryzlov from December 2003 to December 2011.

Sergey Naryshkin, the 6th State Duma speaker, led the house for five years - from December 2011 to October 2016. Ivan Rybkin’s tenure lasted just two years - from January 1994 to January 1996 - as the first the Duma was elected for that specific term.

Volodin served as a State Duma deputy from 1999 to 2011. From October 21, 2010, to December 2011, he served as deputy prime minister and chief of the government staff. From 2011 to 2016, Volodin was first deputy chief of the presidential staff, overseeing the domestic policy directorate and interethnic relations.