The Government of Russia presented the first official draft of Part One to the State Duma in February 1996, four months prior to the 1996 presidential election; Part Two was presented in April 1997. Deputy Minister of Finance Sergey Shatalov promoted the bill. After more than a year of refinements, the Duma passed the bill in the first hearing (due process requires three stages, or hearings) on July 19, 1997. In June–October the Duma accumulated over 4,500 proposed amendments to the bill, making further progress impractical. In October 1997 the Duma and Government clashed over the federal budget for 1998 fiscal year, and the Government recalled the bill to appease its adversaries. When this stage ended, the Duma refused to come back to the old bill; Yury Luzhkov, major opponent of centralized tax collection, declared that "the tax code is already dead. It stinks".