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Russia's Right Wingers Deride United Russia Party's Ideology Debate Proposal
INTERFAX

Moscow, 19 April: Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent State Duma MP and member of Committee-2008 has reacted skeptically to a statement by several United Russia MPs that the party needs an internal debate to draw up an ideology.

"It's very difficult to imagine how they can reconcile their principles of unanimity and general rubber-stamping, the hallmarks of United Russia, with the pluralism of opinions and the left and right wings that they are now trying to artificially create," Ryzhkov said in an interview with Interfax. United Russia "always votes like a military machine, and any member who votes out of line is immediately in trouble," he commented. (Passage omitted: obscure allegory by way of example, 3 lines)

"Everyone knows that the initiative for an internal party debate comes from the Kremlin," he continued. Instead of this, "they should create a proper environment in the country for political competition, for equal opportunities, for lowering barriers to being elected to the Duma, for direct elections of regional leaders, and for political debate on television and so on." However, "the very fact of this statement is in a sense a positive sign that they've realized at the top that the country needs political pluralism."

Leonid Gozman, secretary of the Union of Right Forces party presidium, was also skeptical about today's United Russia statement. "All their complaints about their own party are richly deserved," he told Interfax today. He and his Union of Right Forces colleagues "have much sympathy with those in United Russia who are concerned at the situation in that party and think that it should draw up a liberal ideology."

"But at the same time we don't understand how such an ideology can become an integral part of the United Russia structure," he added. "First of all, it claims to reflect the views not of a segment of the electorate but of all society. Secondly, United Russia MPs support everything the authorities do. And thirdly, they and their leaders shy away from debates with their political opponents." All this, he believes, shows that the party has no serious political future.

Irina Khakamada, leader of the Our Choice party, agrees that today's United Russia move "was imposed on them from above."

"All the talk of the need for an internal party debate to draw up an ideology, about the need to establish right and left wings within the party, originate from the Kremlin. The overwhelming majority of United Russia members and its artificially created right wing are doomed." (Passage omitted: more in same vein, 3 lines)

But at the same time, she believes that United Russia should become a right-wing party "because the Kremlin itself is pursuing a hard-line right-wing and conservative policy". (Passage omitted: more of same, 5 lines)

"But you can only create a genuine political party from people who think alike, not from people who are simply told from above what to do and when," Khakamada stressed.

(Sergey Ivanenko, first deputy chairman of the Yabloko party, said the United Russia move was "simply a bid for votes", Interfax reported separately at 1329 GMT. "The voters of Yabloko and other democratic parties are unlikely to be deceived. The very fact that this is happening inside the officially-controlled United Russia party means that it isn't sincere," Ivanenko was quoted as saying.)