#7
Vek
No. 40
October 12, 2001
TWO MOON JUNCTION
Potential pitfalls on the path to a ruling party
Author: Andrei Ryabov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE PROCESS OF FORMING A NEW PRO-GOVERNMENT PARTY - OUT OF UNITY, FATHERLAND, AND ALL RUSSIA - IS SUDDENLY PICKING UP SPEED. THIS MIGHT LEAD TO RUSSIA HAVING A REAL RULING PARTY, WITH CABINET MEMBERS DRAWN FROM THIS PARTY. OR THE NEW MEGA-PARTY COULD BREAK APART BEFORE THE NEXT ELECTIONS.
Contrary to predictions, the process of forming a new pro- government party - out of Unity, Fatherland, and recent recruit All Russia - is suddenly picking up speed.
Most analysts are fairly calm about these developments. Yet another pro-government party added to the list of them in contemporary Russian political history; the Communists seem likely to lose some Duma seats; and those would appear to be the only results of this great unification drive. Nothing will really change. All pro-Kremlin parties, regardless of membership numbers or ideology (centrist, progressive patriotic, or liberal statist) are destined to play a role very familiar to their Russian audience: they are the group that supports the president's and Cabinet's initiatives in parliament.
At first glance, it's hard to dispute these assertions. But the crucial point here is that none previous pro-government parties (Yegor Gaidar's Democratic Choice of Russia, Sergei Shakhrai's PRES party, Viktor Chernomyrdin's Our Home is Russia) ever had a parliamentary majority. So even though they very much wanted to be more than a rubber stamp for the Cabinet's decisions, they were unable to do so. And now, for the first time in the past decade, there's the possibility of forming a pro-government majority in parliament. In this new capacity, this majority is unlikely to be content with the role of followers in the Duma. What's more, there obviously won't be enough top jobs in the Duma to go around, even if a few key committees and the post of speaker are taken away from the Communists. So the claims of United Fatherland members are going to grow.
There's another factor to facilitate this. The core of the coalescing unified party generally adheres to the same ideological line: gradual, evolutionary reforms, retaining a strong regulatory role for the state in the transformation process. This ideology is now shared by the executive branch as well as the parliamentary majority; the executive branch has made a verbal commitment to continuing radical market reforms, but hasn't hurried to implement them in practice. Such a conjunction is unprecedented in the history of pro- government parties. Democratic Choice of Russia and PRES had their own ideologies, but by the time they became the pro-government parties the Kremlin's priorities had changed. The ideology of Our Home is Russia was something of a fruit salad right from the start.
So what happens when the executive branch and the new parliamentary majority have virtually the same priorities and the same vision of Russia's development? Well, what's the point of permitting strangers from the Union of Right Forces or its political allies to become Cabinet ministers? And why do we need Cabinet ministers who are entirely unconnected with any party, but openly serve the interests of oligarchic clans? All this enables us to raise the issue of forming a Cabinet based on the parliamentary majority. This would make it possible for all branches of government to function as a unified team. And that could only be good for politics. The pro-government party would become a real ruling party; rather than simply approving bills written by others, it could participate in forming the Cabinet, and thus be accountable for the Cabinet's performance.
Of course, there is no legislative basis for such a solution. If a Cabinet is formed by the parliamentary majority, it will only happen through the president's benevolence. But of course, any kind of improvements to the mechanism of state should first be tested in practice, before the corresponding amendments to the Constitution and federal law are made.
If the mega-party currently being formed does not wish to become a ruling party, for whatever reason - if it's satisfied with the existing role of a support group - it will probably face the same fate as its predecessors. In a little while there will be squabbles within the party, and some factions will decide to break away. The wheel will turn full circle. Before the next parliamentary elections, the executive branch will have to create another pro-government party, from scratch.
(Translated by Arina Yevtikhova)
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