Gorbachev: And now there

The executive branch "is hypertrophied, there is a real narrowing of the space of public policy, and laws that impede the competition of parties have been adopted." According to Echo of Moscow, this was stated by the ex-president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev at the Constituent Congress of the Union of Social Democrats.

According to Gorbachev, the country has no support for business development, "there are more than enough conversations, but now there." The ex-president of the USSR also doubts the official information about the number of poor in the country.

At the same time, according to Gorbachev, in Russia there is the possibility of moving towards real democratic institutions.

At the congress on Saturday, Goryachev was almost unanimously elected chairman of the new movement "Union of Social Democrats".

According to Gorbachev at a press conference, the movement does not yet plan to create a political party. Gorbachev also added that he was not going to participate in the presidential election in March 2008. “I am not,” he said. At the same time, he did not give his assessments of the upcoming presidential campaign, Interfax reports.

The congress was attended by the former mayor of Moscow Gabriel Popov, economist Nikolai Shmelev, playwright Mikhail Shatrov, journalist and writer Henry Borovik, as well as representatives of more than 60 regions of the country.

As stated in the draft statement of the Constituent Congress, the "Union of Social Democrats" intends to do primarily "ideological work-to overcome old dogma in its own environment."

Participants in the congress claim that "social democratic values ​​have not lost their attractiveness in Russian society." “Previously, there were many parties of this sense, but the Supreme Court eliminated them. The current political situation in Russia does not allow them to create new ones,” the union explains.

Participants in the movement do not exclude that in the future it will be transformed into a party.

A number of public organizations, including youth, female associations and deceived equity holders, intend to enter the movement of the Social Democrats.