Dmitry Rogozin has hinted he might step down as leader of the nationalist-populist Rodina party, which has come under increasing pressure from the Kremlin and been shut out of elections as its popularity has grown.
"As a responsible politician, I can't set my party up for a blow," Rogozin was quoted as saying by Kommersant on Thursday.
He made the statement Wednesday on the sidelines of a State Duma session, his spokesman Sergei Butin said Thursday. Rogozin was unavailable to comment Thursday, Butin said.
The decision would be made at a party congress on March 25, the spokesman said.
Rogozin's purpose in stepping down would be to put an end to the pressure from the Kremlin, which has become concerned that the party has grown too independent and popular under his leadership and could mount a strong challenge to United Russia in next year's State Duma elections, Butin said.
Without Rogozin as its leader, however, Rodina would lose much of its support, analysts said.
Rodina demonstrated its potential this past Sunday in elections to the Altai republic's legislature, where it came in second, after United Russia.
Courts had barred Rodina from the other seven races to regional legislatures held the same Sunday, which Rodina said was an orchestrated campaign against the party by authorities.
Butin said that party congress delegates in the regions had recently come under pressure from authorities to push for Rogozin's dismissal. But many leading members of Rodina were against giving in to the pressure, he said.
The Rodina spokesman declined to name possible successors to Rogozin, but analysts speculated that it could be Alexander Babakov, a businessman who heads the party's presidium.
Valery Khomyakov, director of the Council on National Strategy, a think tank, predicted that Rogozin would stay on because he has solid support within the party and with voters, but that he would likely moderate his nationalist rhetoric and fall in line with the Kremlin. If Rogozin stepped down, Rodina would lose half of its voters, he said.
Dmitry Orlov, director of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications, said he was less convinced that Rogozin would remain the party's leader.
Influential party members such as Babakov are at odds with Rogozin over his disloyalty to the Kremlin, Orlov said.
State Duma Deputy Sergei Glazyev, who ran for the Duma in 2003 on the Rodina ticket but created a separate faction last year, offered another solution for Rogozin earlier this week. He said in an open letter that Rodina should be led by a group of leaders, which would reduce Rogozin's role.
Rogozin rejected the proposal, saying it would require the party to reregister its charter with the Justice Ministry, a process that he said could bring the party to a standstill considering the "unfriendly environment" it was working in, Interfax reported on Thursday.
Believed to be a government project to undermine the Communist vote in 2003, Rodina later swung out of the Kremlin's control. Orlov said that, among other things, the party irritated the Kremlin by staging protests against the replacement of Soviet-era benefits with small cash payments last year.
Asked to comment on whether the government was seeking Rogozin's dismissal, a Kremlin spokesman said he could not respond immediately and asked for the question to be sent by fax.
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