MERGER OF TWO GENES

POWER

Last week there was another party merger. An agreement on cooperation and partnership between the Semiginsk political coalition "Patriots of Russia" and the People's Party of Russia was signed in the Moscow hotel Marriott-Tverskaya...

Last week there was another party merger. An agreement on cooperation and partnership between the Semigin political coalition "Patriots of Russia" and the People's Party of Russia Gennady Gudkov was signed at the Moscow hotel Marriott-Tverskaya.

Semigintsy merge with populists with an eye on the 2007 parliamentary elections. The members of the coalition have no chances to overcome the seven percent barrier alone. In the last elections they gained from a few tenths to 2-3 percent; adding together all their hundredths, the patriots get the opportunity to create a small faction in the next Duma.

The People's Party, like the rest, also lacks the opportunity to get into the Duma on their own list, but the Narodniks are strong as single-mandate members. The current Duma includes 22 party members. Of course, this is not enough for the faction, but they could not remain independent either, so they decided to join the strongest - they became part of the United Russia faction.

At one time, the People's Party was conceived as a counterweight to United Russia. But by no means political. It's just that the populists were a continuation of one group in the Kremlin administration, United Russia was another. The parties were financed by structures close to Interros. Interros did not need 22 independent deputies, and as part of the pro-government faction, this is a small, but still a lobbying group.

It is significant that the Internet projects of the People's Party were handled by the New Information Technologies company, headed by Ivan Linkov, a member of the board of Interros. However, recently received an order to slow down all work. The reason is that the transition to the election of deputies only according to party lists makes spending on the People's Party pointless.

It turns out that the union of Gennady Gudkov and Gennady Semigin is purely technological. The absence of an ideological basis for the association was especially striking at the signing ceremony of this agreement "On Friendship and Cooperation".

Compare the statements of the leaders:

Gennady Semigin: "We are in strict and serious opposition to the entire vertical of power - both the president and the government."

Gennady Gudkov: "We conclude an alliance not against someone, but for the prosperity of our country."

Or:

Gennady Semigin: "The President agrees with such proposals of the Cabinet of Ministers as ten simultaneous reforms, each of which, if not stalling, then failing."

Gennady Gudkov: "Our party largely supports the president's reforms."

Gennady Gudkov most accurately chose the time to unite with the ex-communist Semigin. A member of the pro-government United Russia faction joined the left-wing patriotic opposition bloc in the midst of a preferential scandal. The chief populist jumped off the ship that had received the first hole in time. This despite the fact that United Russia deputy Gudkov criticized the abolition of benefits in the first reading, but by the second and third his ardor had subsided.

For all their differences, both Semigintsy and Gudkovtsy have a reputation for being loyal to the Kremlin administration. So the question arises: against whom are the two Gennadys going to be friends?

Initially, it was believed that the main task of Semigin was to finish off the Communist Party, pulling away from it the electorate that Rodina could not take away from the communists. However, apparently, the arrival of the People's Party in the coalition means the emergence of additional goals. According to Semigin, in addition to the People's Party, the coalition is going to sign an agreement with Sergei Baburin's People's Will.

Although Narodnaya Volya is ideologically much closer to Motherland than to the left-wing Patriots of Russia, the same can be said about the People's Party. For all of them, social justice is too closely intertwined with the “Russian question”. In addition, for Rodina, uniting with Narodnaya Volya means reaching 50,000 members (according to the new law, a condition for recognition as a political party).

Baburin, apparently, does not want to bend under the authoritarian Rogozin, but it is hardly a matter of personal unwillingness and well-known antipathy of the two party leaders. Rather, the Kremlin political technologists decided that the Rogozins had done their job and were no longer needed, and certainly did not need additional reinforcement.

So in 2007, the "patriots" will try not only to finish off the communists, but also to cool the ardor of self-confident Rogozin.

Help "New"

The coalition "Patriots of Russia" includes 9 parties: the All-Russian Communist Party of the Future (leader Vladimir Tikhonov), the Party of the Revival of Russia (leader Gennady Seleznev), the Russian Party of Pensioners (leader Valery Gartung), the Russian Party of Self-Government of Workers (leader Levon Chakhmakhchyan), the Russian Party of Labor (leader Sergei Khramov), the People's Patriotic Party of Russia (leader Igor Rodionov), the National Patriotic Forces of Russia party (leader Schmidt Dzoblaev), the Eurasian Party - the Union of Patriots of Russia (leader Pavel Borodin), the SLON party (leader Vyacheslav Igrunov), as well as the movement "People's Patriotic Union".