RUSSIA: LEFT-OF-CENTER PARTY MERGER FINALIZED

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 012168

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/01/2016
TAGS: PINR KDEM PGOV RS
SUBJECT: RUSSIA: LEFT-OF-CENTER PARTY MERGER FINALIZED

REF: ST PETERSBURG 690

Classified By: Ambassador William J. Burns: 1.4(d)


1. (SBU) SUMMARY: On October 28, the new Spravedlivaya
Rossiya ("A Just Russia") party was formally established in a
merger of the Russian Party of Life, Rodina, and the Party of
Pensioners. The leader of the new party is Federation
Council Chairman and Russia Party of Life Chairman Sergey
Mironov, who proclaimed the new party's support for President
Putin at the founding conference. Spravedlivaya Rossiya has
positioned itself to be the main rival of Kremlin-sponsored
United Russia and will have its first test in the regional
legislative elections in March. United Russia and the
Communist Party both downplayed the importance of the new
party, but both will likely lose voters to it. Observers
believe that the creation of Spravedlivaya Rossiya
strengthens Putin's hand, as he has broadened his party base
to include both United Russia and the new party, without
being tied down by either. END SUMMARY.


2. (U) The merger of the Russian Party of Life (RPL),Rodina,
and Party of Pensioners (RPP) was finalized at the new
Spravedlivaya Rossiya (SR) party conference in Moscow on
October 28. In near-unanimous votes, the party members
approved the party structure, leadership, and plans for the
next year. In a show of Kremlin support for the merger,
President Putin sent his congratulations to the party,
saying, "Your decision to join forces testifies to the growth
of the creative potential of Russian society."

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Leadership and Structure
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3. (U) Leadership posts were distributed evenly among the
merging parties. SR is led by Sergey Mironov, currently
Federation Council Chairman and the leader of the RPL.
Rodina leader Alexander Babakov will lead the party
presidium, and RPP leader Igor Zotov will be Secretary of the
party's central council.


4. (U) SR will have a congress as its supreme ruling body, a
central council that will manage affairs between congresses,
and a presidium that will attend to all immediate matters.
The central council will consist of 165 deputies divided
equally among the three parties. The presidium will contain
33 positions also divided equally among the three parties.
The regional party leadership will be distributed based upon
regional strength, with RPL and RPP each getting 21 regional
leadership positions, Rodina getting 29, and 14 to be decided
later.


5. (U) SR will be built upon Rodina's organizational base,
which will make the official registration process simple.
Rodina will officially change its name and then issue new
party membership cards to all RPL, RPP, and Rodina members.
Mironov predicted that SR will have 500,000 members. (Note:
Although Mironov stated that this would be Russia's largest
party, United Russia claims membership of more than 1.2
million. End note.)

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Ideology
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6. (U) At a press conference following the party convention,
Mironov said, "we believe that there is a great deal of
unfairness in our country. That is why we need to start with
reforms of salaries and pensions." Mironov took aim at
oligarchs "who we see every year on the list in Forbes, who
have taken for themselves the wealth of Russia's natural
resources." SR's goal would be to reduce the income gap
between Russia's richest 10 percent and poorest 10 percent
from the current ratio of 30 times to only two times.


7. (U) Mironov firmly set SR in opposition to both United
Russia and the Communist Party (KPRF). In contrast to United
Russia, "the party of power," his party would be the "party
of the people." The KPRF ideology is "outdated." He
predicted that soon members of other parties would defect to
SR. "Let United Russia tremble," he said, when they see his
party's strength grow. In response, United Russia presidium
member Andrey Issayev predicted that United Russia would give
the new party "a serious bashing" in the regional elections.

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Dissent
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8. (U) The only dissenting voice at the conference was by
Duma Deputy Yuriy Savelyev, the leader of the St. Petersburg

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chapter of Rodina. Savelyev was frozen out of a SR party
leadership position in St. Petersburg in favor of the
regional RPL leader, Oleg Nilov (reftel). Savelyev's ouster
may have been prompted by his criticism of the parliamentary
commission report on Beslan, which put him in conflict with
Mironov. Savelyev stated that he would not join the new
party because of ideological differences, namely that Rodina
was an opposition party and that SR is not. He is
threatening to take his St. Petersburg supporters with him,
but even he was not optimistic that many of them would follow
his lead.

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Future outlook
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9. (U) The party will immediately commence work on its
bylaws, which will incorporate proposals from the parties and
from the regions, and will be finalized at the next party
congress in February. Babakov said that the party's
intention is to secure a majority in the Russian Duma in the
December 2007 elections. Mironov dismissed speculation that
he might run for President in 2008, and emphasized that the
party was focused on legislative elections in 2007.

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Reaction from United Russia and the KPRF
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10. (C) Leonid Goryainov, the chain-smoking director of
United Russia's Central Executive Committee information
service, told us on October 31 that the creation of SR was
good for the country and for United Russia. "We are against
any monopoly on power, and welcome the competition. Now the
country can stop having this pointless debate about 'Is
Russia a democracy?' Of course we are a democracy. Now let us
focus on matters of substance, like income tax rates."
Goryainov predicted that United Russia would likely lose
ground to SR, which he said would win 15-20 percent of the
seats in the 2007 Duma elections.


11. (C) Per Goryainov, "it was indecent for Mironov to talk
so much about the need for an opposition party when he had
never voted against any major United Russia proposal." The
defection of some United Russia members to SR would only
strengthen United Russia. "This will free the party of
opportunists who only want power and who are not committed to
United Russia's program. Let those who disagree leave, and
we can openly debate our differences, party to party."


12. (C) Putin loyalists ascribe different motives behind the
Presidential Administration's tinkering with political
parties. Goryainov described SR as a means to end for
Putin's legacy: A stable multi-party democracy for Russia.
"Those who suggest only raw power politics in these affairs
misconstrue the President's motives." Putin was using his
training as a lawyer and his knowledge of stable, multi-party
systems to create a similar lasting system for Russia.
Vitaliy Tretyakov, Editor of Moscow News and an adviser to
United Russia, provided a more candid assessment, noting that
the party system is "a mechanism of the Presidential
Administration, a pretense, a project."


13. (U) At an October 26 press conference, KPRF leader
Gennadiy Zyuganov said that SR, like United Russia, was an
artificial creation that posed no real threat to the KPRF.
"They are again trying to take votes from us, but they will
fail, just like they failed with Rodina." KPRF Duma Deputy
Ivan Melnikov contended that Mironov, far from being an
opposition figure, "has in fact supported United Russia on
every vote!" Melnikov sees the creation of SR as a
validation of the KPRF platform. "The country has failed to
stand on only one right leg. This new party is now using our
leftist rhetoric, as is United Russia."


14. (C) The Center for Political Technologies' Sergey
Mikheyev agreed that SR would likely win about 20 percent of
the seats in the 2007 Duma elections. Their main task would
be in the regions where they need to work on combining
fractious elements into a united party. He predicted that
this new party would pull some supporters from the KPRF, but
that the real loser would be United Russia, which is very
worried about how much it would lose.

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What's in a name?
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15. (U) The new party's official name is transliterated
"Spravedlivaya Rossiya: Rodina, Pensiyoniry Zhizn" and can be
translated as "A Just Russia: Motherland, Pensioners, Life."
The party's flag is similar to the Russian tri-color (and

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similar to United Russia's banner),except the red band at
the bottom is much broader, with "Spravedlivaya Rossiya"
written in gold letters.

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Comment
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16. (C) The SR party has now been firmly established, with
the Kremlin's support and blessing, as a left-of-center
counterweight to United Russia and a forum for intra-Kremlin
rivalries to be fought out. It enables the Kremlin to
potentially outflank incipient opposition movements that have
brought down neighboring governments, by allowing Putin to
react to swings in the national mood without being tied down
by a party base or ideology.


17. (C) The news is not good for United Russia, practitioners
of a "sovereign democracy" under one ruling party, who had
until now enjoyed a monopoly on both governmental power and
on Putin's image. Many voters, who supported United Russia
because of its affiliation with Putin, may now find an
alternative in SR. The first cracks in the dam appeared last
week in Samara, when for the first time an RPL candidate
defeated a United Russia candidate for mayor; and on October
27, when three United Russia Duma deputies from Saratov
defected to the new Kremlin party.
BURNS