MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti political commentator Vasily Kononenko). The Moscow organizations of the right-wing parties The Union of Right Forces (SPS) and Yabloko have decided to unite to contest the elections to the Moscow City Duma, which are scheduled for December 4. This local level decision is of national political significance.
Everybody had expected such a development in 2003, ahead of the elections to the State Duma. The ratings of both parties were too low at that time for them to be able to pass the required 5% eligibility barrier. The best-known liberals in the country insisted that the SPS and Yabloko should join forces without delay to protect the liberal idea in Russia. But their calls were not heeded, and both parties were relegated to the sidelines of the Russian political scene. Their share of the electorate is gradually melting away, their regional branches are disintegrating.
Meanwhile, endless and futile talk about uniting and forming a new democratic party on entirely different terms, even through disbanding the present right-wing parties, continue. And now the Moscow organizations of the SPS and Yabloko have decided to carry out an experiment. The SPS has agreed to contest the elections to the Moscow City Duma with a common election list under the Yabloko name. Therefore, the SPS will not be mentioned in the election campaign, which is not just a bitter pill for a party to swallow, but is also dangerous for its image.
However, so far all this is happening without the consent of the heads of the federal right-wing party organizations. All that they have said is that possible variants are being discussed. Everything will become clear in the democratic camp after the SPS congress on September 24 and the conference of the Yabloko Moscow organization on September 25.
Why are the elections to the Moscow City Duma so important? Moscow is traditionally the most politicized city in Russia. On December 4, the residents of Moscow, no less than 20% of which class themselves as supporters of the liberal idea, will decide which of the parties they prefer. The local Moscow elections will undoubtedly reflect the mood prevalent throughout the whole country. It will not just be a case of electing 35 Moscow Duma deputies, of whom 20 should be elected from party lists. Political players view the "battle for Moscow" as a chance to replace the team of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and to create a reserve for the 2007 elections to the State Duma. Under the new mechanism for forming regional authorities, the City Duma will approve the candidate for the post of Moscow mayor. This explains why all the forces on Russia's political scene have rushed to join the election campaign, as if it were a final and decisive battle. In a situation of hopelessness, more and more original ideas are being generated in the party headquarters, such as the proposals that the imprisoned Khodorkovsky run for election or that those who support the liberal idea boycott the elections.
Some analysts believe that a tactical pre-election merger of the SPS and Yabloko will not automatically result in their shares of the electorate being combined. They refer to the past four elections to regional parliaments. Possibly they are right. At the 2003 parliamentary elections Yabloko won almost 10% of the votes in Moscow, and the SPS won 7.5%. If they had united, it is highly unlikely that they would have won 17% of the vote. But no one doubts that together they will manage to pass the 10% threshold, which has been set for election to the Moscow City Duma.
The SPS federal political council has not yet decided how to interpret the demarche of the Moscow organization. This decision is welcomed in Yabloko. Some time ago, Boris Nadezhdin, one of the right-wing leaders, made a sensational announcement: "The democrats are uniting in a most unexpected way." Later it became known what Nadezhdin had meant. At some point, the regional leaders, tired of the squabbles in Moscow, should come out against the intractable federal leaders and on their own accord decide to form a coalition. If this happens soon, the Moscow elections could give a powerful boost to the ratings of the right-wing parties and they could return to the State Duma in 2007.
