MOSCOW – To ensure there is no effective opposition in parliamentary elections next year, President Vladimir Putin and his allies have invented one.
Analysts say Putin has been secretly promoting bogus opposition parties – the leftist Fair Russia and liberal Free Russia – designed to be hidden allies of the pro-Kremlin United Russia movement in the December 2007 ballot.
It’s all part of what experts see as maneuvering by the former KGB officer to ensure he controls Russia from behind the scenes after he steps down as president after 2008.
In a three-hour televised “talk with the nation” last week, Putin indicated he expected to continue having a role setting government policy, telling his countrymen cryptically that “you and I will be able to exert influence on the life of our country and guarantee its development.”
Leonid Sedov, a political analyst at the respected polling institute the Levada Center, said Putin intends to keep his hands on the reins even while nominally giving them up.
“To let go is dangerous for him and dangerous for his close circle, who don’t want him to give up his authority,” Sedov said.
Since he took office in 2000, Putin has taken gradual steps to centralize power and eliminate democratic checks and balances. Now he appears to be laying the groundwork to emerge as the force behind the throne.
There has been speculation Putin could become head of Gazprom, the powerful state-controlled natural gas monopoly that is the symbol of “Russia Inc.” But analysts think he is more likely to take over as leader of United Russia, giving him a political platform to play puppet-master.
Olga Khrystanovskaya, a sociologist who is an expert on Putin’s inner circle, said the distribution of power between the presidency, the prime minister’s office and parliament could be changed to ensure the new president does not hold too much power.
“The collective leadership will remain; the successor will only be a creature of the ‘politburo,’ ” she said, referring to the Communist Party committee that ran the country during the Soviet era.
Since jailing or exiling billionaires who were powerful under former President Boris Yeltsin, Putin’s associates now run major state companies that dominate the key oil and gas sector, and the Kremlin has established control over all national TV and most print media.
The two new political groups seemingly tied to Putin aim to win over voters who have been backing ineffectual and divided opposition parties.
Fair Russia came into existence over the weekend in what some characterized as a shotgun merger of the Party of Life, Party of Pensioners and Homeland, a nationalist movement.
Sergie Mironov, the former leader of Party of Life, now heads Fair Russia, which has a populist platform and claims it will compete against United Russia but also swears loyalty to the president.
Igor Mintusov, a political consultant who served as an adviser on the Fair Russia merger, said the new party hopes to capture 20 percent of the vote to United Russia’s likely 40 percent, relegating the opposition communists to third place.
He said Putin had personally signed off on the merger. “If a political project exists, it has been approved by Putin.”
The other new party, Free Russia, is still in its embryonic stage but it plans to appeal to the fragmented liberal electorate – estimated at 15 percent.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
