"FOR A JUST RUSSIA" STRUGGLES TO FIND ITS PLACE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MOSCOW 002997

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/20/2017
TAGS: PGOV SOCI KDEM RS
SUBJECT: "FOR A JUST RUSSIA" STRUGGLES TO FIND ITS PLACE


Classified By: Political Officer Bob Patterson. Reason: 1.4 (d).

--------------
Summary
--------------


1. (C) Recent conversations with members of the For a Just
Russia (SR) party suggest that the process of forming party
lists has set off a struggle that may leave on the sidelines
deputies who have less money to spend or less influence with
the Kremlin. Some interlocutors worried that SR was in
danger of not crossing the seven percent threshold to
representation in the Duma, and even less likely to hold the
Kremlin's United Russia (YR) party to less than fifty percent
of the vote in the December Duma elections. Pressure against
SR in the regions continues, although the party remains a
magnet for regional politicians unable to strike a deal with
United Russia. It is also attracting entrepreneurs and, in
some cases, members of westward-leaning democratic fringe
parties looking for a way to remain, or become, influential
in national politics. End summary.

--------------
Hopes for Opposition
SR Fade Among Some
--------------


2. (C) Recent conversations with Duma deputies Viktor
Pokhmelkin, Gennadiy Gudkov, and Oksana Dmitrieva, as well as
For A Just Russia (SR) Central Political Council member
Mikhail Demurin and party International Department Head
Vladimir Simindei suggested that the next two months will see
something of a struggle for the party's soul, with those who
had hoped that SR could act as a tool for shaking up the
GOR's too comfortable United Russia-dominated nomenklatura
increasingly inclined to believe that money or Kremlin ties
alone will determine who is included on the electable part of
the SR party list.


3. (C) In a June 7 conversation, Pokhmelkin described a
"serious struggle" within SR, with only a minority of its
members hoping to make the party an agent for change.
(Pokhmelkin entered the Duma as an individual mandate
candidate. With the move to a party list-only system in
December 2008, he has been forced to find a berth in one of
the parties with prospects for representation in the Duma.)
Somewhat compensating for his group of likeminded deputies'
lack of numerical strength, said Pokhmelkin, was its
comparative visibility. Pokhmelkin named Dmitrieva and
Gudkov as among those in the group agitating for the creation
of a party that would openly oppose at least some policies of
the United Russia party. Complicating their task, he said,
was the lack of open debate about the party's future.
Instead, what he characterized as "businessman" seemed to
have the ear of SR Chairman Sergey Mironov, and he worried
they would be awarded the lion's share of key party list
slots at the party congress in September. An SR dominated by
businessmen and compliant regional politicians would mean
that the party would side with YR on most issues, Dmitrieva
said, and her hopes of using the party to advance causes she
believed important to Russia's economic future would fade.

--------------
Mironov Weak
--------------


4. (C) Pokhmelkin was reluctant to criticize Mironov's
stewardship of SR. He was "not completely comfortable" with
Mironov, but acknowledged that, as a friend of Putin, the SR
Chairman did bring some benefits to the party. Later in the
conversation, Pokhmelkin described Mironov as "not a strong
leader" whose influence would be even further diminished once
the President left office in 2008." Gudkov acknowledged that
he had negotiated the terms of his Peoples Party-SR merger
with Mironov, but referred more frequently to Presidential
Administration Deputy Vladislav Surkov in discussing SR's
future.

--------------
Party Workers
Criticize Strategy
--------------


5. (C) In a surprisingly frank June 7 conversation, Demurin
and Simindei elaborated on Pokhmelkin's veiled criticism of
Mironov. SR's efforts to stake out the left had been done
too crudely, they thought, and in a way that played to the
strengths of the Communist Party, instead of outflanking it.
"We are a contemporary version of the KPRF," Simindei
confessed, "but still too lightweight." (Gudkov called
"Kremlin support" of the KPRF "dangerous." He rejected
rumors that SR was contemplating a merger with the KPRF, but

MOSCOW 00002997 002 OF 002


said that SR would be willing to accept defectors from the
Communist Party should they want to switch sides.) SR had
failed to attract to date well known regional figures,
leading to what they called a serious "politician deficit."
In those cases where they had succeeded in attracting
reasonably well-known politicians, they did not fit SR's
leftist image. Demurin mentioned multi-millionaire Aleksandr
Lebedev, who may head the party's Moscow list, as a case in
point. "He's too rich to talk convincingly about the needs
of pensioners," Demurin thought, "and no match for (Moscow
Mayor) Luzhkov."

--------------
Aspirations for a
Multiparty Democracy
--------------


6. (C) Dmitrieva and Gudkov hoped that the December elections
would see a genuine, competitive two-party system emerge.
Dmitrieva joined Pokhmelkin in believing that Putin genuinely
wanted to see such a system in place, but that it was
possible that "the bureaucracy" would not allow such a system
to develop. Dmitrieva termed the bureaucracy the main
opponent to democratic governance in Russia. Gudkov expressed
fears about the centralizing tendencies of the current
government. He thought the drift to less freedom feeds the
growth of extremism. There may be a crisis looming if the
fringe protest movements cannot be directed into a peaceful,
democratic arena, Gudkov worried.


7. (C) What was needed, Gudkov thought, was "democracy along
European lines." For such a system to develop, a democratic
opposition party or parties responsive to its constituents
must be encouraged. Gudkov said he had argued for such a
model in a recent conversation with Presidential
Administration Deputy Vladislav Surkov. Surkov, he said, had
agreed with him.

--------------
Comment
--------------


8. (C) The above comments represent the thoughts of a
minority in the SR as the party lists gel. However, the
anxiety expressed by Gudkov, Pokhmelkin, and Dmitrieva, and
the disillusionment described by party apparatchiks Demurin
and Simindei suggest continued disarray in a party that was
created from three dissimilar parties only last October and
that has run into considerable resistance in the regions as
it has attempted to establish itself.
BURNS