GREAT RUSSIA PARTY PROTESTS REGISTRATION DENIAL

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MOSCOW 003735 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PINR SOCI RS SUBJECT: GREAT RUSSIA PARTY PROTESTS REGISTRATION DENIAL REF: MOSCOW 3262 (NOTAL) MOSCOW 00003735 001.2 OF 002 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Following the Federal Registration Service's (FRS) July 24 refusal to register it, Dmitriy Rogozin's nationalist Great Russia party has begun mapping strategies for getting on the ballot for the December Duma elections. The party's Central Committee Secretary told us that the FRS's arguments for denying registration were weak and legally indefensible, and that the party was planning multiple strategies for overturning or by-passing the decision. Options under consideration are a court appeal and a possible merger with an already-registered party of the same political stripe, such as Patriots of Russia. End Summary. -------------- Great Russia Party Denied Registration -------------- ¶2. (U) As expected, on July 24 the Federal Registration Service (FRS) denied registration to the Great Russia party, citing alleged errors in their registration documents. (Great Russia was founded on May 5 by members who had left the Rodina party after it had been merged with two other parties in the creation of the pro-Kremlin "A Just Russia." It filed for registration on June 25.) Party leaders noted that Great Russia's application had been copied verbatim from "A Just Russia's" registration application, which the FRS had effortlessly approved, and Great Russia leader Andrey Savelev had written a point-by-point rebuttal of the FRS rejection, which had been posted on Great Russia's website. ¶3. (U) Great Russia Central Committee Secretary Sergey Pykhtin, a former Rodina member of the Moscow City Duma, confirmed to us July 30 that the denial had not been unexpected (reftel). Pykhtin insisted that Great Russia met the minimal legal requirements for registration: it was not an extremist organization, it had more than 50,000 registered party members in at least 45 federal regions, and its constituent assembly had approved the party's charter. The FRS letter had cited violations that Pykhtin said were impossible to confirm without additional information. For example, it alleged that 135 people (on what Pykhtin said was a list of more than 60,000) had not actually applied for party membership, but it had not provided the names of the 135 alleged offenders. Even if the 135 applications were ruled invalid, Pykhtin added, that would not invalidate Great Russia's application, as only 50,000 valid names were required by law. In addition, the FRS had made no attempt to consult with Great Russia representatives before rejecting the application. -------------- Next Steps -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Pykhtin told us that Great Russia would continue its efforts to get the FRS to reconsider its refusal, and Savelev's letter was the first step in that effort. If that failed, Great Russia would file a legal appeal. Pykhtin said that while one appeal should be sufficient, Great Russia was considering filing appeals for each of the 60,000 party members disenfranchised by the FRS decision. ¶5. (SBU) If legal appeals fail, Great Russia could merge with another registered party in order to get its candidates on the ballot. The Patriots Party was the closest ideologically to Great Russia, Pykhtin said, but that issue would be discussed at a party presidium meeting on July 31. -------------- The Media and Ties to Nationalist Groups -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Pykhtin said that Russian media had thus far covered the Great Russia registration story fairly, and had fully and accurately printed comments from the Great Russia leadership explaining their complaints against the FRS. He lamented that the Western media had unquestioningly accepted as true allegations by organizations such as the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights and the SOVA Center that Great Russia was extremist, anti-Semitic, and racist. "I think the Western nations make a great mistake when they fund these organizations that are looking for danger where there is none," Pykhtin said. He denied that the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI),with which Great Russia cooperates, was racist or anti-Semitic. Participants in the 2005 DPNI-sponsored "Russia March" who had carried pro-Nazi MOSCOW 00003735 002.2 OF 002 signs and given the Nazi salute as they marched down Moscow streets were "provocateurs," he contended. (Note: Among Great Russia's followers are DPNI's Aleksandr Belov, Andrey Savelev and Yuriy Popov who have, at times, made anti-Semitic and/or racist statements.) -------------- Rogozin on Great Russia -------------- ¶7. (U) In the wake of the FRS's refusal, Rogozin has been everywhere in the print media, arguing both that Great Russia had been artificially excluded, and expressing his continued determination to advance an "ideology of national interests" which, he insisted, would in the end triumph. Rogozin held little hope that the court would back Great Russia's appeal of the FRS's decision, but he thought that a large number of individual appeals to regional courts by those whose rights had been allegedly denied by the FRS might force a reversal. Should that fail, Rogozin reported that Great Russia would have recourse to "plan B," which would have party members seek places on the list of an ideologically-similar party. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶8. (SBU) All signs to date, however, suggest that the Kremlin is unlikely to allow Rogozin to find his way into the Duma via any of these routes. He appears to be on the government-controlled media's "black list," and it seems that the Kremlin has decided that, if given a national platform in the form of a political party able to mine Russian nationalism, the charismatic Rogozin might be just too difficult to manage. RUSSELL