Friday, 20 January 2012Russia’s ruling United Russia party could split into a number of factions in response to the "new realities" created by popular protests against alleged vote fraud in December 4 parliamentary elections.
At a closed-door meeting on January 19, a group of high-ranking United Russia members spoke in favor of dividing the party into perhaps four factions along ideological lines, the Izvestia daily reported.
United Russia already has four “clubs:” a social conservative and a state-patriotic club and two liberal ones. But only a minority of party members currently participates in the activities of the clubs, whose only functions are to discuss particular topics.
Coincidentally, United Russia’s State Duma faction is already divided into four parts, for purely administrative purposes.
Party members have in the past proposed the division of the party and its Duma faction on ideological lines, but every time the issue has been raised, it has met with a cool response from senior party officials.
This time, the idea was supported by almost everyone who participated in the discussion, Izvestia said. The first person to raise the issue at the meeting of clubs was Yury Shuvalov, the deputy secretary of the party’s Presidium of the General Council. He called the ideological division “individual participation in the party.”
He was supported by General Council member Vladimir Medinsky, who said the appearance of real factions would entail serious changes: the groups would separately discuss and develop laws and vie for representation in the party’s governing bodies.
“The factions should lead to full-fledged competition within the United Russia party and to a constant rotation of party heads,” Medinsky said.
Supporters of the idea said there was a need to split into ideological groups due to the large number of differing views within the party.
“We should understand that with the gradual development of the political system, it will be difficult to keep everyone on the same ideological platform,” State Duma Deputy Igor Igoshin said.
“We should be ready for the internal structure of the party to consist of competing ideologies. All of the world’s successful democratic parties rely on internal competition. We did not invent this bicycle, but we should learn how to ride it.”
The idea of dividing into factions was agreed by almost all the participants of the meeting. A few were opposed, in particular Budget Committee chairman and liberal club member Andrei Makarov. "I do not know what the ‘new realities’ are, but the people who desire to bury United Russia just don’t have the ability to do that," Makarov said. Other senior party officials also oppose a breakup, Shuvalov said. |
Friday, 20 January 2012
Ria Novosti
|
|
