On the live television programme, Itogi, Communist Party Chief Gennady Zyuganov said that his faction, the strongest in Russia's Duma, or Lower House of Parliament, would ask the Constitutional Court for a ruling on whether Yeltsin had the right to repeatedly offer the same candidate for Prime minister.

Zyuganov said he expected the Court to answer by Friday.

According to Russia's constitution, when a President's candidate fails to be approved in the first vote, a second must be held in the Duma within a week. The Duma had rejected Kiriyenko's candidacy on Friday, but indications are that he may be approved in a second vote.

In an earlier interview, Zyuganov demanded that the next vote on Kiriyenko be an open ballot, to prevent Kremlin efforts to influence individual deputies.

Kiriyenko, a 35-year-old former head of an energy ministry, was thrust into the political spotlight from a position of relative obscurity when President Yeltsin selected him to replace former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin after the President's sudden firing of his entire cabinet last month.