Chairman of the State Duma of Russia, head of the United Russia party Boris Gryzlov (L) and President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shokhin (R) attend the party's session.
Photo: Valery Melnikov
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Number One Position
// United Russia introduces a new position specially for Vladimir Putin
The United Russia party decided to introduce the position of the party’s chairman. It will be offered to Vladimir Putin at the party’s conference today. Boris Gryzlov, current United Russia leader, will retain his position of the party’s Supreme Council’s chairman, from now on the second one in the hierarchy. Anyway, the party faces changes.
Delegates of the United Russia party’s conference unanimously voted yesterday for introducing the party chairman position. Necessary amendments to the party charter are to be registered by the Justice Ministry by the session’s opening today. So, everything necessary for his invitation to the party will be ready by the time when Acting President Vladimir Putin arrives to the session. “Tomorrow, we will be able to officially offer to Vladimir Putin to become the party’s chairman,” said the United Russia Supreme Council’s Chairman Boris Gryzlov yesterday. The first official invitation was voiced a week ago. However, no official response came from the Kremlin.
The party chairman’s position cannot be called a sinecure at all. On the contrary, the person who takes it will obtain practically unlimited power inside the United Russia party. The chairman will suggest candidates for heading the party’s governing and central bodies and its structural units. At the same time, he can suspend the powers of any party leaders and members, and any decisions adopted by the party’s governing and central bodies, except the decisions adopted at party conferences. Only two thirds of the conference can resign the chairman. However, the charter also allows for his voluntary resignation. The charter fixates that the party chairman cannot be the deputy head of its Supreme Council.
The broad opportunities opening for the chairman are, perhaps, not so high a price for fulfilling the United Russia’s old dream – to formally fixate the party’s and Putin’s relations. To get a chairman like that, the United Russia is even ready to do without issuing a party membership card to him. The charter allows it.
Putin’s positive answer (of which Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov has no doubts, -- please see Kommersant as of April 7) will mean considerable changes both for Putin and for the party.
Alexander Karelin, member of the party’s Supreme Council, believes the United Russia “will keep working just as it has worked so far, because the chairman will deal mostly with strategic management, while the current one will be administered by the Supreme Council’s chairman.”
Political expert Gleb Pavlovsky thinks that Putin should also become the party’s member, so as to acquire the full right to change the structure of the party, which has so far been “autonomous from the president’s administration and the executive branch of power”. Evgeny Minchenko, director of the International Institute for Political Expertise, said that “the amendments [to the party charter.—Kommersant] have fixated the extent of influential capacity which he already has as president”. “Since Putin’s position in the party looks more stable than the prime minister’s position, he will reinforce that element,” said the expert.
Moderator of the Our Democracy club and a coordinator of the November 4 party club Valery Fadeev said at the conference that the party’s political role and structure should become more complex. The United Russia will move towards creating factions and giving the official status to the party’s three clubs. The delegates of yesterday’s conference approved the Clubs’ Charter, which will allow the party offering to the society any political products, from right-wing to socialist.
Besides, the United Russia should become the center of a broad coalition of public forces. In Support for Vladimir Putin movement leader Pavel Astakhov said yesterday that the movement adopted an agenda for the coming four years, and is ready to actively cooperate with the United Russia. The party should also waive the support of bureaucratic apparatuses including those in the regions. It should find a way to give broad support to mass media, work out and control the mechanism of business and power cooperation in politics. At last, the United Russia should establish itself as the ruling party which forms the government responsible to the parliament.
Speaking of the last point, several delegates admitted that it is a matter of the future, because the party is now unable to completely form the government. According to some sources, inside the party there was a strong intention to nominate representatives to the government. However, the eventual decision was that the conference does not have the powers to do so. “According to the Constitution, the government is formed by the prime minister, and nothing is said about the party,” said Pavel Krasheninnikov, head of the State Duma Committee on Legal and Judicial Issues. “Moreover, we have to trust Vladimir Putin. Invitation to the government is an individual matter,” he added.
According to some sources, the party will not undergo significant reshuffle at the 9th conference. “The party leaders can actually remain the same,” said Politika Fund head Vyacheslav Nikonov. Yet, those whom Putin entrusts with managing the party in the new political situation will probably join the United Russia in working order.
It is already known that changes await the party’s Executive Committee. It is about to be renewed. Yuri Oleinikov, head of the territories management department, is leaving. He was considered close to Krasnoyarsk Territory Governor Alexander Khloponin, and carried out many campaigns of the party. A little earlier, the international department head had vacated his seat. So far, the Executive Committee’s deputy head of the public organizations department has been in office. Another vacant position is that of the information management head.
Irina Nagornyh
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 15, 2008
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