MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti political commentator Yury Filippov). Russia is pulling out the stops to build a multi-party system.
President Putin signed into law a bill on State Duma (lower house) elections using party lists exclusively on May 19.
This law will not only let major Russian parties consolidate their role in the law-making process. It will turn parties into political players who are oriented to peaceful political competition and electoral success rather than revolution. It is essential, as the experience of neighboring countries has shown the political fragility of a presidential republic that is unable to organize and hold free elections on a multiparty basis.
Although there is still time before the 2007 parliamentary and 2008 presidential elections, it is already obvious that major Russian opposition parties and the party in power will be playing in the same boat with the state, if not the party in power. In other words, they will be interested in stability. Their voters, too, want normal competitive democracy rather than any upheavals.
The Communists have apparently adopted the Kremlin scenario of the future elections (i.e. absolutely non-revolutionary). Following his meeting with the president, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said, "Such meetings help work out a common line for all branches of power to control the situation in the country. The events in Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan means we should be vigilant and clever."
Another opposition leader, Dmitry Rogozin of the Homeland party, makes no secret of his euphoria. After meeting the president, he said opposition parliamentary factions were helping develop state policy for the first time, though in the format of some political national security council. Continuing this practice would mean further consolidation and democratization, said Rogozin.
Why? The opposition has a clear idea that a country scared by "orange revolutions" of its neighbors is doomed to help increase parties' influence.
Two measures pledged by Putin may cause a "revolution" in the still faceless Russian party life. The first measure allows parties that won the majority in regional legislatures to propose their own representative as a candidate for governor to the president. This innovation will help winning parties determine the personnel policy in relevant Federation members.
The second is providing equal access for parties to the state-run media. No Russian political force has invented a method yet that would outstrip government television in terms of its impact on the audience. The recent trend to keep opposition parties away from television leaves them out of public political life, which is dangerous. Therefore, this defect should be removed if Russia is to become a multiparty country.
On the face of it, major changes in the Russian party system seem to be designed to improve the status of the opposition. But this is not quite the case. Pro-presidential United Russia will certainly benefit most from the consolidated multi-party system. As the most powerful and influential party, United Russia will nearly get a cart-blanche for personnel policy in the regions. It will gain most from facilitated access for parliamentary factions to state-run media, as two thirds of Duma deputies are members of United Russia. Even the intensifying competitiveness of the opposition should in effect become an advantage for United Russia, making it more dynamic and streamlined, ridding it of extra "party fat."
Russia's multiparty development has another insignificant feature. First Russian President Boris Yeltsin established the informal institution of "the successor": if the president steps down, his prime minister replaces him. With this in mind, many analysts say Putin plans the other way around - to consolidate the authority of prime minister and occupy this post after his presidential term expires. The most vulnerable point of this scheme is that the head of government has never been a leading political figure or had much authority either in Russian history or in the post-Stalin Soviet Union.
However, stronger parties (and their leaders) can prove quite symptomatic in terms of succession. After all, Russia has vast experience of party rule.
