Communists Agree With Medvedev Cautioning Against Tailoring Power to Specific Person
Interfax | May 13, 2011 | JRL 2011-86-15 | JRL Home
MOSCOW. May 13 (Interfax) - First Deputy Chairman of the Communist Party Central Committee and State Duma Vice Speaker Ivan Melnikov has fully agreed with the warning made by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday about the danger of attempts to tailor power to suit a specific person.
"I think it is proper to agree with the declaration of the head of state that attempts to tailor power to suit one person are dangerous," Melnikov told Interfax.
He said that the idea is so apparent that there would not have been any need to express it but for the concrete situation evolving in Russia.
"In general the idea is quite apparent. After all it is absolutely clear that there should be checks and balances in any effective system of government. However, in the present political situation this is a timely remark because the party in power is constantly trying to substitute the discussion of ways of the country's advancement and the present state of affairs by talk about chiefs and national leaders," Melnikov said.
Speaking of United Russia he said: "They demand blind faith from the people instead of confidence in the policy they conduct, they demand support for reforms which the public does not accept."
"It should not be so, and sooner or later they will run out of the credit of public trust and hope," he said.
However, he disagreed with the opinion that all lessons of history in this respect have been negative.
"There were moments in our history when society consolidated around a powerful figure really feeling that this figure embodies a fair and wise policy. Here it is important to duly evaluate where such a policy stands behind a concrete person and when it is only propaganda. That is what the debate is about," Melnikov said.
Earlier on Friday Medvedev said at a meeting with young parliamentarians in Kostroma that attempts to tailor power to suit a specific person are extremely dangerous.
---->
