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#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.