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Putin to address Russia’s crisis-hit ruling party
MOSCOW, Nov 23, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Russian leader Vladimir Putin is set
Saturday to address a United Russia convention as the ruling party struggles
to overcome a crisis amid the public’s growing desire for change.
United Russia, which was established in 2001 and turns 18 next weekend, has
been a legislative powerhouse, enjoying a constitutional majority in
parliament’s lower house since 2007.
In recent years its popularity has floundered amid mounting economic
troubles and unpopular government decisions and its current rating hovers
just above a record low of 32 percent.
Taking the brunt of criticism for recent reforms like an increase to the
state pension age, the party is in need of a rescue plan by the Kremlin,
analysts say.
United Russia has become so toxic that even ranking members chose to run as
independents in local polls in September, earning a rebuke from party
chairman Dmitry Medvedev.
Observers say the Kremlin underestimates the scale of the party’s crisis
and rule out any major reforms. Saturday’s goal is to “raise the party’s
popularity and signal that Putin is still with it,” said Konstantin Kalachev,
head of the Political Expert Group think tank.
Putin distances himself from United Russia, and his spokesman Dmitry Peskov
this week reiterated that although the president would address the
convention, he is not its leader.
That role had been delegated to Putin’s loyal lieutenant, Prime Minister
Medvedev, whose popularity is also very low, and Putin’s appearance on
Saturday could somewhat boost the party’s ratings.
The convention, which is to be held in a Soviet-era exhibition centre in
Moscow, would review the results of this year’s elections and address
preparations for legislative polls in 2021.
– Putin’s ‘lightning rod’ –
Unlike in many other countries, where the ruling party typically forms the
government, United Russia does not make independent decisions and only
rubber-stamps Kremlin and government initiatives.
“Its major task is to control parliament, but between elections, there is
no need for the party, as its role in parliament is purely technical,” said
political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya.
It is basically a “department of the Kremlin administration,” the head of
the R.Politik analysis firm told AFP.
Kalachev said United Russia serves as a “lightning rod” for the criticism
of the authorities’ failures like rising poverty, corruption and ever-
swelling bureaucracy.
In the eyes of the voters, “the party takes responsibility for all the sins
of the authorities,” he told AFP.
“It’s the party’s fault, not Putin’s.”
In the eyes of the opposition, United Russia is a “party of crooks and
thieves,” according to the famous phrase coined by top protest leader Alexei
Navalny in 2011.
Not a single candidate including the head of the party’s Moscow branch,
Andrei Metelsky, ran on the United Russia ticket in the Moscow city
parliament polls and even state-controlled pollsters indicate Russians’
fatigue with its dominance.
Fifty-one percent of respondents said they believe the ruling party should
“periodically change,” the VTsIOM said on Thursday.
Stanovaya said that the Kremlin understands the party “needs to be
rescued”, stressing however that the authorities were “underestimating the
situation.”
But major party reforms are hardly possible as Russia’s political
establishment is being kept in the dark about Putin’s plans beyond 2024, when
his fourth Kremlin term ends, observers say.
“Nobody understands how the government structure will change, whether Putin
will stay or go, and what United Russia’s place will be in the system,”
Stanovaya said.
BSS/AFP/ARS/1011 hrs