Vladimir Putin's fans are afraid that without their leader they will wake up to see to the 1990s.
Photo: Alexander Miridonov
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Russian Campaigners Urge Putin to Stay
700 people from across Russia passed a resolution in Tver on Thursday to set up All Russia Council of Initiative Groups to Support Putin and promised to remain vigilant until they are sure that after the 2008 presidential election “the course of the incumbent president” will be continued. Organizers of the session assured that their movement “does is not affiliated with any party” but the grass roots themselves said off the record that they are members of United Russia and were sent to the sessions by NGOs close to regional authorities. Kommersant’s Maria-Luisa Tirmaste reports from Tver.
A congress of members of initiative groups were held in at the Academic Drama Theater in Tver, a city 160 kilometers northwest Moscow, on Thursday to crown a series of rallies staged across the country within the recent weeks. Members of manifestations from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok declared support for the continuation of Vladimir Putin’s policies and urged him to stay in power. Organizers of the Tver session say that the rallies gathered some 30 million signatures in support of Vladimir Putin.
You could feel the decisive mood of Putin supports once you stepped into the theater. Organizers did not allow foreign journalists to attend the meeting saying that the council of initiative groups is “Russia’s domestic business”. However, sometimes they would come up with personalized excuses for some reporters. A journalist from an Estonian paper was told that there were no seats left in the hall, but when the Estonian stepped aside the organizers discussed among themselves another reason: “Why would we let him in? They took off the Bronze Soldier.” But cameramen from foreign media were allow to “shoot the picture” of the opening 15 minutes. The picture was reminiscent of the recent session of United Russia where the party was trying to convince Vladimir Putin to find a way to remain the president but they at least succeeded in getting him to head their election list. Participants of the council session in Tver tried hard to convince one another that Russia has no alternative to Putin – as if someone from the meeting’s participants doubted it.
All speakers recollected “the terrible 1990s” and tried to scare one another that without Vladimir Putin the country might go back to that black hope. “The Constitution can be amended under three circumstances,” Vladimir Voronin, deputy ataman of the Great Cossack Army, said. “The law is written by man, and it’s only a law written by God that’s impossible to change. So we shouldn’t listen to the West.” Second World War veteran from Krasnodar Vladimir Shibanov said the president “is an amazingly reliable person – if he says ‘yes’, he will do it.” Chief physician of a hospital in Tyumen Sergey Menevstev said that those were on strike in the 90s now “vote for the incumbent authorities to stay”. Actor Gosha Kutsenko, who was representing arts, promised from the rostrum that if Mr. Putin decides to make a movie debut, he would gladly work with the Russian president as a director.
The two-hour long praise for the head of the state ended up in a resolution to set up All Russia Council of Initiative Groups to Support Putin and its coordination council of ten people which featured prominent lawyer Pavel Astakhov, heart surgeon Renat Akchurin and head of the trade union of agriculture industry Natalya Agapova. The structure will still be quite informal. The council will have no headquarters or staff. The session also endorsed an address to Russians to support “our national leader Vladimir Putin” at the parliamentary election. The Council of Initiative Groups promised to carry on working until it is sure that after the 2008 presidential election “the course of the incumbent president” will be continued. Lawyer Pavel Astakhov promised to hand this papaer personally to the president at Moscow’s forum of Mr. Putin’s supporters which is to be held on November 21.
Mr. Astakhov is unfazed about the stunning unanimity of his allies. He is convinced that those gathered are “free people who choose the course of the person who has been steering the country to prosperity in the past years”. He underscored that Mr. Putin supporters “has no affiliation with United Russia” and declared the parliamentary election is “a referendum of trust for Putin”, which was actually a repetition of United Russia’s election motto. He underscored that no party members vote for him.
Kommersant learnt that many delegates were actually United Russia
members sent to the session by NGOs close to regional authorities. For example, the chief specialist of the Emergency Situations Ministry’s office in Komi Republic Alexander Astanin admitted that he is a United Russia member and “the life situation made him vote for Putin” while he was put forward by a veteran organization of the Afghan war. “They told me that I was going here. Who selected me? Some sort of commission,” he said. Secretary of the board of the Union of Writers, poet Nadezhda Miroshnichenko confessed that she got a call from the regional government “when the question arose who should be sent to the forum – Komi “has no weavers, we’ve got solid industry – oil and coal… and some milkmaids, too.” The delegates from Komi were taken from the congress by the republic’s head of the administration who said that the people were entrusted with an important business, and Komi’s representatives in Moscow provided buses for the delegates. The president’s envoy in Kabardino-Balkaria who introduced himself as Artur called Kommersant’s question whether the republic picked up delegates for the council “prevocational”. “We didn’t pick them up from the street,” he said. “We selected people. How? It’s a technical issue.” The man himself did not hide the fact that he is a United Russia member: “But I would not like to put an emphasis on it because I’m here as a no party member.”
But some delegates were genuine no-party members. For example, deputy from Krasnodar Territory’s Tuapse District Roman Plyuta was from Great Russia party which is not officially registered. Mr. Plyuta was earlier a member of the Fatherland party and later was in Fair Russia. Now Roman Plyuta “supports the course of Vladimir Putin” and is “afraid that bureaucrats, this gang, will pilfer the country out… Putin is surrounded by a scorched field.” Mr. Plyuta confessed that he was invited to Tver by people close to the regional administration while Krasnodar region’s delegation was headed by the governor’s PR person.
Asked how much the forum cost lawyer Pavel Astakhov said that these were “not the expenses that should be discussed”. He said the event had been financed by “rich” nonprofit organizations, businessmen and the participants themselves. What is more, Mr. Astakhov said that the event’s organizers had to resist puppy’s enthusiasm of “zealous bureaucrats who were the first to offer help”. Asked to comment on the presence of people from the president’s administration, the lawyer said they were there only “as observers”. One of the delegates specified: “I’m sure you realize who organized and sanctioned this!”
Maria-Luisa Tirmaste
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 16, 2007
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