Teaching Comparative

Electoral footnote in Moscow

Peter Finn reports in the Washington Post on what is likely a footnote to the upcoming elections in Russia.

Kremlin-Backed Opposition Party Foundering as Elections Loom

"Created by the Kremlin just last year and anticipating a bright future, the political party Fair Russia was designed to be the junior partner in a 'two-party system' in which everyone pledges fealty to President Vladimir Putin. But with Dec. 2 parliamentary elections imminent, the Kremlin's creation is suddenly gasping for political life.

"Led by Sergei Mironov [right], a Putin loyalist and head of the upper chamber in Russia's legislature, Fair Russia declared itself the left-wing alternative to United Russia, the pro-Kremlin party that currently dominates parliament. Mironov and other party leaders criticized United Russia as little more than a bunch of bureaucrats sitting on a pile of petrodollars with no plan to help ordinary Russians.

"But Fair Russia's populist message was tempered by declarations of undivided loyalty to Putin. 'We support and will support the president,' Mironov said this year.

"On Oct. 1, Putin said he would head the United Russia ticket in December's elections, an announcement that simultaneously boosted that party's already healthy ratings and delivered a swift kick to Fair Russia's ambitions, if not its very legitimacy...

"Fair Russia was formed by a merger of three small parties and was seen as a vehicle for siphoning votes from the Communist Party without threatening United Russia's ascendancy. A similar ploy was used in 2003 when the Kremlin created the nationalist Rodina party, which was purged and folded into Fair Russia when it showed signs of independence...

"The most recent Levada Center poll suggests that only United Russia and the Communists will enter the next parliament... and that United Russia will have an overwhelming majority, more than the two-thirds needed to change the constitution. That would allow the party to amend the constitution to allow Putin to serve a third consecutive term, which is currently barred..."

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Labels: elections, parties, politics, Russia

posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:10 AM