Ready for merger

The idea of ​​the Duma redistribution did not inspire the “alliance of four”

All summer the Unity party and the Fatherland movement will be preparing for unification. The plan for future work will be discussed by the coordination council of the two organizations, which will meet for its first meeting on April 26. Yesterday, the “bears” and “compatriots” met separately: the political councils of both organizations nominated eight representatives - members of the unification council. The coordination council will be headed by Yuri Luzhkov. Sergei Shoigu, after yesterday’s meeting of the political council of the Unity party, said that he was going to offer the chairmanship to the mayor of the capital. Meanwhile, another Duma coordination council of the “four” (the Unity and OVR factions, the Regions of Russia and People’s Deputy groups) held its first working meeting yesterday.

The unifying idea was supported by two political councils “fully and unanimously.” At the same time, Yuri Luzhkov clarified that the decision of “Fatherland” was “the object of a very serious discussion” at a meeting of the political council. The main thing now, according to Sergei Shoigu, is to organize work at the regional level, hold regional conferences and other events. The leader of Unity does not rule out that “maybe we will even have to hold our own all-Russian congress” before merging with Fatherland. In addition, Mr. Shoigu, having made “estimates for the summer,” said that both organizations should make changes to their charters and programs in order to have “single documents” before the merger.

Yuri Luzhkov believes that members of the unification coordination council will work “on issues of party building, economic and economic problems, positioning in matters of state building, ensuring security and law and order, as well as social support for the population.” But first of all, according to the Moscow mayor, it is necessary to develop the “ideology of the future party.”

Mr. Luzhkov, like Mr. Shoigu, also considers the “unification of regional organizations” important. This issue, according to Mr. Luzhkov, is “difficult” for Fatherland, which has many collective members - social movements. Yuri Luzhkov does not yet know whether “we will unite public organizations that do not include party membership.”

The “bears”, created in their time, like “Fatherland”, by the forces of several socio-political movements, do not have such a problem. Having transformed into a party, Unity introduced fixed individual membership, prohibiting its members from simultaneously being members of several political organizations. Yesterday, the leader of Unity emphasized: “We are not pulling anyone towards us, but we are united by conviction.” The unification congress is planned to be held in November. According to Mr. Shoigu: “There is still time, and we will not mind if someone else wants to be with us.”

While party leaders from the “bears” and “compatriots” were making official decisions on the merger, their Duma representatives yesterday took joint practical steps. In fact, the Quartet’s coordination council planned to adjust the principles of joint activities in the Duma. But we had to discuss the initiative of the People’s Deputy group, which proposed at the end of last week to reduce the number of Duma committees. The idea of ​​partners “in principle” was not rejected by the members of the coordinating council. However, the “alliance of four” will return to discuss it after May 15, as Oleg Morozov, leader of the “Regions of Russia” group, said at the end of the meeting.

True, by this time the Duma will be loaded with a mass of economic and tax bills promised by the president in his address to the Federal Assembly and in the recent budget address. Apparently, this is why the deputy chairman of the Unity faction, Vladislav Reznik, suggested yesterday that there would most likely not be a redistribution of Duma portfolios before the end of the spring session.

The coordinating council for the unification included

From the Unity party:

Sergei Shoigu is the leader of the party, Lyubov Sliska is the first deputy speaker of the Duma, Vladimir Pekhtin is the head of the Duma faction, Franz Klintsevich is a Duma deputy, acting. head of the political council, Yuri Medvedev - Duma deputy, deputy head of the party's political council, Sergei Popov - member of the Federation Council, head of the party's executive committee, Vladislav Reznik - deputy head of the Duma faction, Evgeniy Trofimov - Duma deputy.

From the Fatherland movement:

Yuri Luzhkov - leader of the movement, Georgy Boos - vice-speaker of the Duma, Artur Chilingarov - vice-speaker of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin - deputy chairman of the Duma faction of the OVR, Andrey Isaev - Duma deputy, secretary of the political council of the movement, Alexander Vladislavlev - secretary political council of the movement, Tatyana Dmitrieva - director of the Institute. Serbsky, Nikolai Kovalev - Duma deputy.

Maria NIKIFOROVA, Victor KHAMRAEV