#19 - JRL 8275 - JRL Home
From: eugene_ivanov@comcast.net
Subject: RE: Russia's liberals mull merging
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004
At first glance, the Union of Right Forces (SPS) merging with a yet-to-be-formed “right wing” of United Russia looks like a sensible idea. On the SPS side, the move makes sense to those who like the member of the political council Boris Nadezhdin support the Putin’s liberal economic reforms but downplay the disagreements with him on human rights, media freedom and war in Chechnya. Within United Russia, a coalition with SPS is attractive to people who feel that the ruling party has become too large and amorphous. Supporters of this position Deputy Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin apparently being one of them b! elieve that joining forces with SPS would help promote their liberal agenda. Besides, they would welcome an influx of experienced ideological soul mates SPS is capable of providing for a common cause. By no accident, the SPS members who in December 2003 were elected to the Parliament in single-mandate districts have later joined the United Russia fraction. One of them Pavel Krasheninnikov was even rewarded with a Duma committee chairmanship.
The problem with the formation of a major liberal party in nowadays Russia is that it may become a party without constituency. The successful implementation of the liberal and almost inevitably unpopular economic reforms supported by United Russia will have the potential of creating a significant protest vote at the next Duma elections. It is highly unlikely that this protest vote will go to a party that is considered even more liberal than United Russia. Quite to the contrary, the protest vote will likely be funneled to the left, with parties of a socialist flavor expected to benefit from the shift. It is at the left flank of United Russia that K! remlin will be focusing its efforts to draft a “plan B” for a possible defeat of the ruling party. Any move to fragment the already hardy monolithic United Russia would run counter to these attempts. The creation of a major liberal party in Russia would be a welcomed event should the political spectrum dramatically shift to the left. However, the need for such a party may not materialize until after 2007.