| It has not yet been possible to create a new right-wing liberal party in Russia either from above or from below After the failure of right-wing parties in the December Duma elections, the question of the presence of an active opposition seemed to have been resolved by itself. For a while. According to recent sociological surveys, Russians confirm that now in our country there is no political opposition to the authorities that would be able to have a serious impact on the life of the country. In October 2004, 47% of Russians stated the complete absence of such forces.
But neither the Kremlin nor the remnants of the opposition itself could stop at stating the death of the opposition. To consolidate the success, immediately after the elections, the victorious United Russia tried to distinguish itself as a “right wing”. This thought did not leave United Russia for quite a long time. Many party members fought for the right to lead the hypothetical right wing of United Russia. However, talk about the creation of a right-wing opposition “from above” has moved to another, for now theoretical, plane.
Rumors are steadily circulating that a plan has been prepared in the depths of the presidential administration to create a new party in power under a liberal guise. It is believed that this structure should become a counterweight to other party projects - the bureaucratic-bureaucratic “United Russia” and the left-nationalist “Motherland”. The main characters in the liberal party could allegedly be the Minister of Economic Development and Trade German Gref, the Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin, as well as the Chairman of the Accounts Chamber Sergei Stepashin and the Vice-Speaker of the Federation Council Alexander Torshin. True, we have to admit that their potential as public politicians is low. And the liberalism of some of them is even questionable.
At the same time, the youth organization “New Right” already really exists and is striving to become a party, which some experts also regard as a Kremlin project. “For about three months we went to the Duma club, drank beer and came up with a program for the New Rights, hoping to become their think tank,” Alexey Chadayev, president of the New Rights Foundation and a former assistant to Boris Nemtsov, told reporters. The idea of Chadayev’s party is attributed to the famous political strategist and gallery owner Marat Gelman.
Member of the SPS political council Alexey Kara-Murza compared the “New Rights” with “Walking Together”. “This is the United Russia Komsomol,” he told Vremya Novostey. - The idea was correct, because some right-wing leaders have been sitting too long and young people are nervous. But the latest statements by the New Right show that this is a Kremlin project. They are now saying the same thing as United Russia.
Deputy head of the Center for Political Technologies Boris Makarenko is more lenient towards the New Rights: “This is not a party, but they are right-wing in the European sense of the word. True, I’ll write you a good right-wing program and collect the most frequent mentions of the values of Western parties. Which is what the New Right is doing. This is a group of intellectuals that has nothing to do with public politics.”
At the same time, the threat of final political death loomed over the already officially existing right-wing parties. According to the new election legislation, only parties with at least 50 thousand members will be able to participate in the next parliamentary campaign. And to get into the State Duma you will need to get at least 7% of the votes. Moreover, the Central Election Commission really likes the idea of banning voting blocs in elections. At the same time, the rating of the current heads of right-wing parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, according to the same opinion polls, tends to zero.
According to the head of the Politika Foundation, Vyacheslav Nikonov, according to recent polls by VTsIOM and ROMIR, at the moment they do not exist as politicians: “Irina Khakamada has 1.9% of the population’s trust, the rest of the liberal politicians are unmeasurable and are approaching the value that It is customary to neglect statistics as an error. These, in particular, include the Yabloko party. And refusal to participate in the presidential elections in March of this year became a kind of suicide.”
Analysts believe that one of the few ways to reincarnate right-wing parties is to search for a new leader. Boris Makarenko suggested: “If we find that the old leaders cannot unite even under the threat of extinction, we need a new flag, new leadership.” According to the political scientist, independent deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov is now demonstrating maximum maturity. It was he who had the chance to become the “single candidate of the democratic forces” in the presidential elections in 2004.
Now, in addition to the Union of Right Forces and the Yabloko party, one of the former leaders of the Union of Right Forces, Irina Khakamada, is trying to unite the liberal electorate under its banner, regardless of the rating. At the founding congress of the new party “Our Choice”, it was decided that the new “social-liberal” organization would try to be elected to the State Duma without repeating the mistakes of the Union of Right Forces. The main goal of the new party is noble - “Russia as a state of freedom and social justice.” “Our main mistake was that we listened little to people, how they live, what they think, who they are and what their life values are,” Ms. Khakamada stated in the report, characterizing her past as part of other political forces .
At the same time, Irina Khakamada hopes that the opposition political forces will eventually unite. Theoretically, if the Ministry of Justice registers Our Choice, the party will be able to unite with Yabloko and SPS. True, the leader of the new political force emphasized that there is an option in which “Our Choice” refuses to participate in any blocs.
At the same time, the deputy chairman of the Yabloko party, Sergei Ivanenko, expressed great doubts about the unification of the right. “There are many ridiculous questions in Russia, one of them is: will we unite with the Union of Right Forces? - he told Vremya Novostey. —What does it mean that parties of some mythical “right spectrum” will unite into one? This is stargazing. Of course, there is the task of creating a democratic coalition and, in a broader sense, uniting all the forces that will be able to fight authoritarianism and the impending dictatorship. But this has nothing to do with the merger of organizations.”
Most of the leaders of traditionally right-wing forces in Russia unanimously rejected this title. Irina Khakamada told Vremya Novostey that the right in Russia are Vladimir Putin, his government and United Russia: “They are right ideologically, as they advocate cutting social spending, liberalizing the market, and an authoritarian regime. The right has always been conservative, now they are preserving the Soviet traditional model of power.”
Boris Makarenko believes that what unites the fragments of right-wing parties is liberalism, although it is very different between Yabloko and SPS: “The real “right” program - populism, devotion to conservative values - is found in United Russia, Rodina, Zhirinovsky. And the “New Right” really has a right-wing program. Everything else can “come together”, unite only on a liberal basis.”
Member of the SPS Political Council Alexei Kara-Murza explained to Vremya Novostey that in the early 90s of the last century, all oppositionists of the totalitarian system were automatically classified as right-wing: “When we went to the elections in 1999, it turned out that people were accustomed to the definition “right”, which is why the Union of Right Forces was traditionally called that. United Russia is neither a right nor a left party. In our parliament there is only a top and a bottom. “United Russia” takes all the ideas for itself, mixes them up and does not allow anyone else to become a competitor.”
The activities of the current liberal forces now boil down to attempts to regain what has already been lost - seats in the State Duma, which is fraught with a tactical alliance with the communists and loss of face in regional by-elections to the Duma. And in accordance with the professed liberal and democratic goals, it is necessary to focus on building a horizontal structure of the party. Otherwise, the traditionally amorphous Russian society in 2008 will again be “organized” from above. Daria GUSEVA |
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