#17 - JRL 9060 - JRL Home
From: Eugene Ivanov (eugene_ivanov@comcast.net)
Subject: To break or not to break, -- that’s the
question about United Russia.
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005
Time may be running out for the Russia’s liberals to make up their minds about their future. Speculations are swirling that the Kremlin is about to take a chunk of the United Russia party and convert it into a new right-wing structure. What triggered these speculations was a series of meetings that allegedly took place between people in the presidential administration and some high-ranking members of United Russia known for their liberal views (http://www.ng.ru/printed/politics/2005-02-04/1_kremlin.html). Talks began about the imminent dismantling of United Russia. Some analysts went as far as to proclaim its days ”numbered.”
This is not the first attempt to bury United Russia in its current incarnation. Last summer, a number of party configurations involving parts of United Russia were circulated around without any practical steps to ensue. What has happened between then and now that the Kremlin might be finally serious about implementing the reconstruction plans? The answer could be simple: Ukraine. According to this scenario, scared of potential popular uprising the authorities decided to tighten control over any protest sentiments. Given the enthusiasm about the “orange revolution” expressed by the liberal opposition leaders, the Kremlin may have concluded that it cannot trust them anymore. Hence its precipitous move to fill the still empty space at the right with whatever material was available.
The above scenario is perhaps too melodramatic. After all, the inability of the liberal opposition to capitalize on public anger has been proven yet again in the course of the ongoing “babushka revolution.” The Kremlin’s alleged attempts to fill the “liberal void” may rather reflect its disappointment with the failure of the liberals to bring order in their house. As quoted by Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Gleb Pavlovsky, a political consultant with close ties to the presidential administration, put it this way: “The Kremlin gave one year to the liberals to deliver. They have failed. Now it [the Kremlin] has a righ! t to take the initiative in its own hands.” (http://www.ng.ru/printed/politics/2005-02-04/1_kremlin.html).
The efforts within United Russia are likely to deal with something more important than a short-term goal of capturing a fraction of the protest vote. This something is the economic and political interests of the emerging Russia’s middle class. There seems to be growing understanding among United Russia’s leadership that only parties capable of articulating a liberal ideology attractive to the middle class protection of property rights, independent judiciary, and individual freedoms -- would have stable and sustained political future. United Russia’s own liberals must have decided that they can accomplish the job by themselves without outsourcing it to their soul mates in Yabloko and SPS.
One of the leading United Russia’s conservative ideologues, Duma deputy Vladimir Pligin, acknowledged the possibility of the formation of a “liberal wing” within United Russia, but disavowed the idea of the wing flying off United Russia any time soon (http://www.polit.ru/news/2005/02/11/wingsoveramerica.html). Maybe Mr. Pligin and the Kremlin as well is aware of the old adage: don’t fix it if it ain’t broken. United Russia with its 900,000-membership base and the constitutional majority in the Duma is hardly br! oken. Little can be gained by breaking it up.