Russia’s ‘Party of Power’ Isn’t, Pertsev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 14 –United Russia is almost universally called Russia’s “party of power,” but in the wake of the Duma elections, Andrey Pertsev says, that is entirely inappropriate. Instead, it is truly “a party without power” since that vote and is likely to remain so as long as it exists in the Putin system.

            “United Russia,” the Meduza journalist says in an analysis for the Moscow Carnegie Center, is “no longer the party of power but a naked infrastructure for the construction of any pre-election projects the Kremlin may come up with.” It is in itself an empty stage onto which any suitable people can perform as actors (carnegie.ru/commentary/85989).

            This development was highlighted by the post-election congress of the group, a meeting that passed in routine and almost unnoticed fashion. Most of the old leaders remained, and speakers did not react to the party’s obvious defeat in the elections. That failure reflected more than shame; it reflected what the party has become.

            It is important to remember that its current impotence was not always “the norm” for United Russia, which in the past had truly been the party of power at least in the sense of who its members were. But now United Russia has lost even that function: it includes those the Kremlin wants and votes for Kremlin initiatives just like the LDPR or similar groups.

            United Russia doesn’t have an ideology, and its leadership increasingly is drawn from those whose political futures were in the past, just as the Kremlin intends. Consequently, membership in the group is no longer even a certification of the importance of the individuals who are part of it.

            “For the domestic politics bloc of the Kremlin, such a form of existence for United Russia is most comfortable,” Pertsev says. “The Presidential Administration likes quasi-party projects built on a marketing philosophy” that its “trusted political technologists” come up with for each electoral cycle.

            As the commentator notes, “in the 1990s, the Kremlin created a new party of power for each election. These attempts were not very successful, in part because every time, the regime had to develop the needed infrastructure from the ground up. Now, the Kremlin doesn’t have such a problem.”

            Instead, it has a blank stage on which it can send its actors out. The Putin regime doesn’t have to change parties; it simply changes the party itself – yet another indication that United Russia is no longer a party of power.