| Representatives of the major Russian parties and
political scientists accompanying them, after gathering yesterday
at a meeting of the Open Forum club to assess party platforms, came
to an unsettling conclusion. For the majority of voters these platforms
do not contain anything they find interesting. Voters are more attracted
to a "brand", charismatic leader, or some kind of election
campaign slogan. The exceptions, possibly, are only the Communist
Party and Yabloko. According to Mark Urnov, head of the Expertise
Foundation, election policy platforms are of interest to 40% of
the potential electorate of these parties. Meanwhile the platforms
of the Union of Right-Wing Forces and United Russia are of interest
to less than 20% of voters. And this is not surprising: these parties
to a large degree rely on the charisma of the leaders (in the minds
of the electorate, the leader of United Russia is President Putin).
In the opinion of Sergei
Mitrokhin, deputy leader of Yabloko, it is precisely the party
platform that represents the grounds making it clear to the voter
what he or she is dealing with - it is the ideological organization
representing the interests of one group or other, or is the usual
PR product. "To understand whether the party has a history
or whether it is just a PR project, it is sufficient to have a
look when it adopts its policies," noted Mitrokhin. "If
the policy platform is adopted with great pomp on the eve of the
elections, than we are dealing with a PR project." Mitrokhin
clarified that he had the Union of Right-Wing Forces in mind,
whose platform "A Strategy for Russia", written by Boris
Nemtsov, was presented only eight months before the impending
Duma elections. Before that, the URF somehow got by without any
strategy.
Incidentally, this attitude of the Union of Right-Wing Forces
towards a party platform is not surprising. In the view of Irina
Khakamada, co-leader of the URF, a party platform just doesn't
play a key role in voting, but should act in society "via
certain signals". "Recently, the competition between
the parties has intensified over party platforms. It is not surprising
that that the main accusation against United Russia is that it
is not going to form its own party platform. If, however, the
party forms a platform during the elections in accordance with
the demands of voters, then this will be a PR-based document."
Nevertheless Khakamada later said: "Platforms should become
subjects for discussion in society."
Andrei Isaev, representing the roundly cursed United Russia,
did not speak about party platforms. In accordance with United
Russia's traditions, he swore that the abusive term "party
of power" was unjust. However, as soon as Igor Bunin, head
of the Political Techniques Center, discovered a new type of electorate
v a sort of protest vote group, that at the same time did not
want to vote for the communists - Isaev immediately announced
the aspirations of his party for vote: "The electorate that
does not oppose the President or the regime, but opposes its leader,
for example the head of the Housing Services Commission - they
will vote for us."
The political scientists also decided that it was necessary
to clarify issues with the term "policy platform". "All
the platforms which parties have presented were impossible to
fulfill. The President has a filing cabinet for these platforms,
but not the administrative apparatus," said Gleb Pavlovsky,
president of the Effective Policy Foundation. He also promised
that such an apparatus would be created after the next elections.
The Director of the Information-Analytical Centre of the Communist
Party, Ilya Ponomarev, shared his opinion: policy platform ideas
roam from one platform to another, with those present.
A policy platform will have real significance when a party that
wins the elections actually comes to power. For the time being,
however, most platforms are no more than a decorative component
of party life. To all intents and appearances, most participants
in the discussion agreed with this statement..
See also:
State Duma
elections 2003
YABLOKO and
SPS
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