Parties and steering

How many games are just right: three or one? The question that everyone is discussing is from ordinary party specialists to historians and public thinkers. The catalyst for discussions was a package of Medvedev bills on the so -called political reform. From the very beginning of the protests in December last year, it was clear that the authorities, which could not strangle the rally activity, would as far as possible to bite the opposition and will go to decorative changes in the regime for the sake of maintaining its foundations.

And so it happened. The opposition was diluted, as far as possible, by dubious personalities playing two fronts, and at the same time promised seductive concessions regarding the legalization of the non -systemic opposition. If in commerce "Any whim for your money", then in politics - any promise for recognition of legitimacy. Part of the opposition pecked on the bait and crawled into gatherings with the president. First, discuss amendments to the electoral legislation, now bargain for party numbers and blocks. What else do the authorities need? Once they bow, it means that they recognize legitimacy! (Or maybe Medvedev was elected more honestly Putin?)

Forcing the opposition to exclude concessions, and not to achieve them along with the protest movement, the authorities fulfilled its plan one hundred percent. Or, as in Mordovia in the past elections, by 109%! Acting as petitioners in Volodin’s office, the opposition pushes out street protests from themselves. Knight riot is not combined with street passionarity. And the attempts of Udaltsov to take in touch in Moscow, climbing on telephone booths, will not correct anything here.

However, the “street” seems to have already understood the nature of trade between power and the opposition - and at the last two rallies “voted”.

And what about parties? How many of them should be and how many people should be in each of them? Million opinions. And here just like in the elections in Chechnya: 99.9% of commentators call the numbers that personally seem to them the most reasonable.

President Medvedev considered a reasonable minimum number of party members of 500 people. State Duma deputies Gennady Gudkov ("Fair Russia") and Sergey Resashulsky (Communist Party) consider 10 thousand the figure. The deputy from the LDPR Sergey Ivanov likes 5 thousand. These are the opinions of the "system" parties. "Non -playing", of course, want registration, and therefore they are for the minimum number. Although notes of concern with the possibility of the appearance of an incredible number of parties are slipping here.

How do supporters of increasing the minimum number argue their numbers? “Because at 500 members of the party, you can entrust them in such a huge number and include in the political process both nationalists and fanatics, and God knows who. To turn political life into a nightmare,” explains the head of the legal service of the Communist Party, State Duma deputy Vadim Solovyov.

Sergei Ivanov from the LDPR, recalling the 90s, when the minimum number of parties was 5 thousand, was horrified: "Even this led to the elections to the election up to 50 parties. Imagine what will happen if the party’s threshold is ten times less."

The one-party man Ivanov, the vice speaker of the State Duma Igor Lebedev was more frankly explained: "Maybe the figure of 40 thousand people was overestimated, but at one time it was done to cut off a myriad of shallow sales."

Yes, no one, in fact, doubted why the "system" parties reliably stuck with the asses to the Duma chairs were so negative about updating party life in the country: they are afraid of political competition. The arrogantly abandoned "shallow" is bravado. If opponents swim so finely, so what, it would seem, the Duma sharks to be so afraid of them?

There are nothing surprising in the fact that the State Duma deputies look at laws in terms of their party benefits, and not the interests of Russian citizens. Why on earth will the crooks will care for the interests of the robbed? It is more interesting that people outside the authorities talk about the number of parties in the country in terms of simplicity of management and state or ideological interests.

The abundance of parties is afraid of the editor -in -chief of the “independent newspaper” Konstantin Remchukov: “If we have 100 parties with 100 leaders, then none of them, even with the most crystal elections, is simply there (to the State Duma. - A.P.) Any barrier there, if any barrier is not shot at all.”

Feeling himself not only by the political prisoner, but by the political figure, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in his instructions, writes that she needs to "limit herself to two or three new batches that can replace the outdated systems of system opposition on the political field."

Yabloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin believes that if the parties are not allowed to be blocked in the elections, then "all political space will be chopped into the smallest particles. This is just the collapse of the political system and everything."

Everyone has one concern - how will the elections will pass, what will happen to the authorities and whether the voter will be confused if there are dozens of parties in the electoral ballot? None of the politicians says: "I will get confused in such a ballot." Everyone considers voters worse than themselves.

But the most important thing is that each of them considers himself, if not as the Lord of God, giving political life to shapeless public masses, then at least his governor who arranges earthly life in the best way. They give such numbers because it seems to them that they know how to.

And how would they tell them to understand? AU, gentlemen, parties are not created so that you control them and with their help solve your or state problems. Parties are created by citizens so that they themselves can solve their problems - city, regional, nationwide, international, any. The word "party" comes from the Latin Pars ("part"), and this means only one thing: any part of society has the right to unite to solve their problems. It is not at all your concern, what problems they are and how many people solved to unite for their joint decision. If their activities are illegal, they will be stopped by justice. In all other cases, no barriers should be for them.

Even two people are part of society. They can be a party. Why should each of these two be less rights than each of 500 or out of 40 thousand? Just because someone is afraid to get off the account and get confused?

Parties, like religious associations, should be registered according to simple, understandable, transparent and universal rules. Approximately the way all public organizations are recorded. The political party, the church or club of gardeners are equally valuable for society, for their existence meets the interests of the citizens gathered in them. Citizens, not state or politicians! The interests of citizens are in the first place, and the interests of the state are not even in the second and not in the tenth. There are no individual interests of the state at all; These are just a commonly expressed common interests. For this, citizens need parties in democratic states, as well as other structures of civil society. If there are no these structures, the interests of the state will be represented by a narrow group of citizens united by obscurantist ideology, criminal interests or membership in the Lake Cooperative.

A large number of parties may turn out to be a difficult problem - primarily for the electoral system. But these problems must be solved, and not brush it off from them, limiting the freedom of political life. The issue of participation of small parties in elections of various levels can be resolved in different ways. You can associate the territorial elections with the representative office of the party in this territory. You can determine the participation of the party in the federal elections in lower parliaments or municipal bodies. Surely you can come up with other regulatory schemes that maintain at a fair level a balance of interests of citizens and society.

The only thing to do is to prohibit any number of citizens to gather peacefully, without weapons for street manifestations - and, in the same way, to prohibit any number of citizens peacefully and without weapons to unite for public political activity.