By Director General of the Center for Current Politics in Russia Mikhail Vinogradov
The Constitution Court’s ruling that set the minimal number of members for a party to pass registration at 50 thousand people completed transition to few-parties system.
The idea to enlarge parties had been proposed back during the Vladimir Putin’s first presidency term – at the same time with the regions enlargement project. However, the first attempts to establish powerful political parties were unavailing. Instead of that, small pro-Kremlin parties began to emerge (the parties of Mironov, Raikov, Seleznev, and other).
The second try – party reform - was more successful in 2004-2006. Legal limitations were introduced to shove small parties from the political scene and stimulate establishment of large parties by merging several medium-sized ones (the most famous such project is The Just Russia). However, the reform did not lead to the appearance of strong parties in Russia. Abolition of some parties looked dubious and was followed by scandals. At the same time, obscure parties, such as the Sazha Umalatova’s organization, managed to keep their “party” status. Several “dormant” organizations that do not take active part in elections (for example, the Agrarian Party) remained parties as well.
The Constitution Court’s ruling may spark off a new stage of the party reform – “enlargement from the bottom.” The goal to gather around 50 thousand members is no piece of cake both because it is costly and because people do not trust or want to be members of parties. The stereotype that existed in the Soviet days – “we can’t afford another party” – has been intensified thanks to the general disappointment with politics and by the experience of the past 15 years when parties proved unable to influence on the actions of the executive power. At best, they existed independently from the real decision-making, at worst – were capitalizing on their own brand. It stands to reason that the idea to make a parliament republic (no matter who proposed it) faced such spurn – the people and the elite of Russia witnessed the parliament crises in the CIS states in Eastern Europe.
At the same time, the lack of strong parties has been weakening the political system of Russia. Effectiveness of the power vertical is not eternal. Limited are the opportunities to bring out new ideas and concepts, audit regional governments, tune the dialogue with citizens. Emergence of powerful political corporations that rely on large network of activists, donor support, factions in regional parliaments is a good way to stimulate competition between ideas, projects, programs, “shadow cabinets,” which are an inseparable part of competitive politics.
The 50 thousand members requirement cannot be considered unreachable for either communists or rightists or Yabloko – their potential bases are quite wide and if approached correctly can help prevent the Justice Ministry from disqualify those parties. There are also vacant niches, to which new parties may come – protection of the small and medium size businesses, protection of the regions’ interests, environment, and so forth. The question is whether the parties will be ready for the new role. Their advantage is the obvious need to replace the power’s staff and introduce new approaches to economic modernization, to the social sphere and to state management principles. Against them are the disbelief in parties and the inertia of any party machine.
Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, July 19, 2007
