| By Alexei Gorbachev
The CPRF, Fair Russia, and United Russia are about to begin
their party conventions. Not a single party has come up with
a revolutionary program or even anything resembling it, so
that there is no use expecting any sensations from the conventions.
Programs of all political parties are focused on social issues.
All of the forces of the opposition call the ruling party
its political enemy but the Yabloko party alone promises to
criticize
United Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin.
Programs and tickets will be presented at the conventions
soon to start. In fact, United Russia convention is probably
the only one where some surprises might take place - but only
if the intrigue around the tandem is finally resolved there.
This newspaper approached its sources within political parties
for comments on what these parties intended to offer to voters
in the forthcoming parliamentary election.
United Russia promised to concentrate on "social economy".
Andrei Nazarov of the ruling party's faction said, "The
matter concerns social commitments to people, it concerns
government support... and establishment of 25 millions jobs."
Igor Lebedev of the LDPR faction would not say anything specific.
He advised this correspondent to take a look at the party
program. The recent LDPR convention was traditionally focused
on the national issue. Lebedev called United Russia the LDPR's
prime political enemy. "Will the LDPR then criticize
United Russia leader Putin?" - "It has nothing to
do with the parliamentary campaign."
Program of the CPRF is to be focused on social and economic
issues. Secretary of the Central Committee Vadim Solovyov
said, "Oil and gas ought to belong to the people, and
all export dividends ought to go to the budget. From there,
this money ought to be spent on education and public health."
Communists complain that media outlets are mostly interested
in United Russia which is getting 70% air time whereas they
only get 15% or so. The CPRF called United Russia the political
enemy and promised to criticize it but... Solovyov said that
no special emphasis was to be made on criticism of Putin even
though the CPRF
was not exactly pleased with his performance and had some
questions to the premier. Solovyov said, "The questions
we have to the premier concern the law on social benefits
to money conversion, near collapse of the Armed Forces, and
the dachas he has had built... And yes, there is one other
thing. Putin is leader of a political party without being
its member. That's nonsense."
"We have totalitarianism in this country. It is not
United Russia we will be fighting in the forthcoming parliamentary
campaign. It is all of the Russian state that we intend to
challenge," said Solovyov.
Sources within Fair Russia promised to focus on social issues
too. Party's election center chief Oleg Mikheyev said, "We
object to what they are calling reforms in the sphere of education
and the outrageous abuses in the sphere of communal and housing
services permitted by the ruling party... Besides, the Constitution
plainly states that public health care is supposed to be free."
Mikheyev also complained of a near-boycott organized by
federal media outlets and particularly TV networks. Calling
United Russia prime political enemy, Mikheyev became oddly
evasive when asked if Fair Russia intended to criticize Putin.
For some reason, Mikheyev was confident of Fair Russia's ability
to come in second in the parliamentary race.
Yablokos programme will focus on three issues. "Fight
against corruption, introduction of an article into the Criminal
Code envisaging punishment for unlawful enrichment, and firing
of all state functionaries unable or unwilling to explain
their personal fortunes, Yablokos leader Sergei Mitrokhin
said. Also [we are] for return to elections at all levels,
public control over secret services, and transition to professional
military service."
According to Mitrokhin, at present Yabloko is about to publish
a large number of copies of its electoral programme, that
will be delivered to the voters by party activists. And before
that Yabloko had organised a number of actions and pickets,
and Kirill Gontcharov, leader of Youth Yabloko, had even served
several days of imprisonment in the Gelendzhik prison for
the action by the centre of the Russian Orthodox Church [in
Gelendzhik], also called Patriarchs country cottage.
Mitrokhin said that all the political parties were Yabloko's
political rivals adding that Yabloko would criticize United
Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin. Yablokos leader was
the first and the only politician who dared to criticize Vladimir
Putin: We have absolutely definite claims on Prime Ministers
performance: namely, creation of a resource-based economy,
huge corruption and virtual liquidation of political competition.
Asked about his party's priorities, Right Cause Chairman Andrei
Dunayev mentioned return to elections at all levels and development
of federalism. As for political enemies, Dunayev said that
Right Cause had no enemies but called United Russia and the
CPRF "adversaries". The party leader would not criticize
Putin. Russian Patriots called "Justice for all and happiness
for everyone" their central slogan. Deputy Chair of the
party Nadezhda Korneyeva said, "Forget modernization.
We'd better develop new society and a new state on the basis
of patriotism... Like all other political parties, we perceive
United Russia as our prime political antagonist."
Like practically all other political parties, Russian Patriots
promised to criticize United Russia alone in the hope
that Putin would guess that the criticism applied to him as
well.
See also:
The
original publication in Russian
Elections
to the State Duma 2011
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