| The world respects the diplomacy
of the Russian president more and
more. Hundreds of articles are devoted to his confident and sometimes
risky foreign policy moves. "He sacrificed what he never
possessed - the
light of a declined superpower," the Washington Post said
recently. The
paper continued, "He managed to sell the dead souls to Washington,
and
received in exchange the keys to NATO, the European Union, and
the World
Trade Organization." However, so far he only has keys
to the anterooms,
not to the more significant rooms.
Russia has a long way to go before it
will be able to enter the
West's main apartments. That is why Moscow does not conceal its
desire
to see real results of its policy in long-term prospects,
meaning the
results that the public and elite could undoubtedly interpret
as
inevitable progress.
So far, foreign policy breakthroughs
of the Kremlin are loudly
applauded. What about domestic policy? Leader of right-centrist
movement
Yabloko Grigory Yavlinsky believes that Putin has given Russia
a
controlled democracy. According to Yavlinsky, all political institutions
in Russia, including the presidency, are becoming empty labels.
The
president almost completely rules parliament: today a coalition
of four
centrist parties guarantees to the president the majority for
passing any
law. However, it is still a quantitative, not a qualitative issue.
For
instance, according to many sociologists, the small Union of Right–Wing
Forces party is hardly likely to be able to win at the forthcoming
parliamentary elections. Liberal Russia, which involved some renegades
from the Union of Right Forces, is able to carry out a subtle
manoeuvre
and block the Communist Party - undercertain conditions of course.
Unity
has never become a real party and is also hardly likely to be
able to
change the political landscape of the country at the forthcoming
elections. So far, there are no other pro-presidential parties
in Russia,
however, rumour has it that the Federation Council plans to give
birth to
another party, Life.
Kremlin's techniques had a wonderful
impact on the Communist Party,
the force that was the most powerful strategic base for the president.
Its wager on splitting the party with the help of Gennady Seleznev's
Russia party is quite improbable, while the losses may be rather
considerable: unlike other parties and movements, which are mostly
products of political technologies, the Communist Party of Russia
has
real structures in the regions, and has influence among a considerable
part of the population. Opposing Vladimir Putin, it will
distance itself from the president more and more, thus pushing
him to
the right. As is well known, the right wing is identified in Russia
with
the ineffective activities of the federal government in Chechnya,
the
general situation in the country, crime, and corruption in various
echelons of power, and even certain defects of presidential
administrative initiatives.
There is another problem. It may seem
strange, but certain forces
interested in replacing the nation's political leader may
also support
the Communist Party. This has already happened in Russia, in 1917.
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