"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