RUSSIA: Opposition Gathers to Take On Putin

By Kester Kenn Klomegah Reprint | | Print |

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, Mar 22 2005 (IPS) - Liberal and left-leaning parties are moving towards a broad alliance to fight the "growing threat of dictatorship" ahead of parliamentary elections due 2007.

The parties, backed by human rights groups and non-governmental organisations supporting democracy, resolved at a conference earlier this month to come together against the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party and the nationalist Rodina (Motherland) party that currently dominate parliament.

"Russia is gradually moving away from Soviet-style politics, democracy is evolving and a state without an opposition has no future," Union of Right Forces (SPS) spokesman Boris Nadezhdin told IPS. "The situation in the country can only be changed when there is a powerful opposition to check political abuses and to seek protection of citizens."

"The opposition is not obliged to please the authorities, and the authorities are not obliged to like the opposition," said the leader from the liberal party. "But no one in Russia – neither the president, nor anyone else – has the right to declare someone an enemy of the state due to the fact that the person does not share the same line as the authorities in power."

There were no checks during the Soviet days because there was no opposition, he said. "And if there is no well organised radical opposition in Russia now, the fate of political monotony characteristic of the Soviet times will still await the country."

Anatoly Chubais, SPS leader and chief executive of the electricity firm Unified Energy Systems narrowly survived a roadside ambush last week when a bomb went off near a black armoured BMW car carrying him to work, and attackers opened fire with automatic weapons.

An attack on such a high ranking official challenges the political stability assumed until recently to have existed under President Vladimir Putin, leading politicians said.

Former SPS leader Boris Nemtsov said Putin had failed to cut down on crime and that the law enforcement agencies were doing little.

"These are the consequences of the following processes: crime is on the rise; it’s up 30 percent since Putin came to power. There is censorship, so these figures are not published, and people don’t know.. But you can get a sense of what is going on even from average people," he said.

"Secondly, the special services are doing anything but protecting people. And since they are directly under Putin they feel that their power and control are complete. Further, more political extremism is booming in the country. Official political power either turns a blind eye to it, or in some cases, provokes it."

Former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, however, told Interfax news agency that he "would not like to think of it as the end of political stability." Kasyanov has indicated his intention to run for presidency in 2008.

But some remain doubtful whether strong opposition unity could take shape. Former world chess champion Gary Karsparov and liberal Duma member Vladimir Ryzkov plan to form a new political party without the leading liberal parties Yabloko and SPS.

"The changing economic situation really calls for a promising powerful opposition that can effectively work towards the promotion of aspirations of the electorate," an aide to Ryzkov told IPS.

"There is an agreement between Ryzkov and Kasparov to form such a liberal party," he said. "Their main goal is to transform Russia into a normal, civilised country. They would want to bring back basic political freedoms and to fight Putin’s authoritarian regime." He said Ryzkov and Kasparov are disappointed over infighting between Yabloko and SPS members.

A recent survey on ‘Freedom in the World’ relegates Russia from ‘partly free’ to ‘not free’.

"Russia’s step backwards into the ‘not free’ category is the culmination of a growing trend under President Vladimir Putin to concentrate political authority, harass and intimidate the media, and politicise the country’s law-enforcement system," Jennifer Windsor, executive director of the U.S.-based Freedom House which conducted the survey said ouse Housein a press release.

"These moves mark a dangerous and disturbing drift toward authoritarianism in Russia, made more worrisome by President Putin’s recent heavy-handed meddling in political developments in neighbouring countries such as Ukraine," she said.

Russia’s status was downgraded because of flawed parliamentary elections in December 2003 and presidential elections in 2004, further consolidation of state control of the media, and imposition of official curbs on opposition political parties and groups, she said.

But 49 percent of Russian citizens believe Putin is doing as good a job as president as he did in his first term in office, a recent Russian poll says.

The survey by the Public Opinion foundation March 5-6 shows that 27 percent of respondents thought Putin is performing even better now. About 1,500 people living in 100 communities in 44 regions, territories and republics were polled.