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"United Russia" promises to implement Putin's plan even after he leaves the presidency
The main contender for victory in the December Duma elections, United Russia, will hold its pre-election congress, the last of all major parties, on October 1 and 2. More than 500 delegates and over 2,500 guests will take part in the congress, including members of the Federation Council and State Duma deputies, representatives of federal authorities, heads of Russian regions and prominent public figures. It is expected that the event will be attended by the president himself and this will become, according to the leader of United Russia, State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, a form of his support for the party. And Mr. Gryzlov himself, in his report, will outline the party’s program for implementing Putin’s plan , which will form the basis of the United Russia election campaign.Moreover, United Russia promises not to rewrite this program even if the next president refuses to follow Putin’s course or, without formally refusing, declares his own political plan for Russia’s development. “Putin’s plan and the United Russia program built on it offer solutions to real problems using specific methods and means. Whoever is elected to the post of the next president of the country, he will not be able to cancel reality by his decree, say, ban reality,” Vladimir Katrenko, vice speaker of the State Duma from the United Russia faction, told a Vremya Novostey correspondent. -- Tactical and strategic tasks of Russia's development will still have to be solved. And no one has yet proposed a better, more accurate and comprehensive definition of the range of these tasks and methods for solving them than was done in Putin’s plan and the United Russia program. Therefore, the prospect of rewriting the party program for opportunistic reasons for the United Russia party does not threaten. This is the first thing. And secondly, today it would be much more productive to think about the continuity of Putin’s course than about a specific successor. And continuity of course is the strategic goal of our party.”
“The successor cannot be “Anti-Putin.” Putin’s plan is designed for many years to come and will continue to be implemented,” Oleg Morozov, first vice-speaker of the State Duma and one of the key strategists in the leadership of United Russia, noted in a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent.
The congress of the party in power will also approve the electoral lists of the party in power. It seems that United Russia has reconsidered its initial views on the first three federal parts of the list. Before this, they believed that the party would be led to victory by its leader Boris Gryzlov, the head of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu and Olympic champion in speed skating Svetlana Zhurova. However, now the leadership of United Russia is exploring other options. The top three may include the names of the first deputy prime ministers of the Russian government, Sergei Ivanov or Dmitry Medvedev (the latter, however, publicly announced yesterday that he would not run for parliament), as well as the governor of St. Petersburg, Valentina Matvienko. Ms. Matvienko just recently agreed to participate in the elections in the ranks of United Russia, although before that she stubbornly refused to head the regional list of the party in power. Perhaps a place in the top three of the federal list (let us recall that the founding fathers of the party, Mintimer Shaimiev and Yuri Luzhkov, were only awarded the right to head the regional lists) was the reason why Valentina Matvienko changed her attitude towards participating in the parliamentary elections.
The troika will be finally determined at a meeting of the party’s general council, which will take place on the morning of October 1. And its composition will be announced only on the second, final day of the party congress - October 2.
On the eve of the congress, United Russia members are concerned not only with their own electoral lists, but also with attacks from competitors. At the end of last week, Boris Gryzlov complained to reporters that other parties participating in the elections were focusing their campaigns on criticizing United Russia and the government. “I follow publications in the media about various parties and see: all of them, without exception, build their ideology and, accordingly, rhetoric on the principles of opposition to United Russia,” the speaker said, noting that none of the opposing parties seriously does not claim power. “They either don’t want to take power into their own hands, or they want to, but understand that they can’t,” Mr. Gryzlov noted philosophically.