RUSSIA: Ruling party "United Russia" says on course to win parliamentary elections

Record ID: 336411

  • Title: RUSSIA: Ruling party "United Russia" says on course to win parliamentary elections
  • Date: 1st December 2011
  • Summary: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (NOVEMBER 29, 2011) (16:9) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF UNITED RUSSIA FLAGS ON BRIDGE WITH KREMLIN IN BACKGROUND
  • Embargoed: 16th December 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Russian Federation
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5IUGQ5JJ976JT4NUPR29GAXH1
  • Story Text: Russia's leading United Russia party heads for the upcoming parliamentary elections on December 4 aiming to retain a two-thirds majority in the State Duma, Russian lower house of parliament.
    Russian Premier Vladimir Putin accepted his ruling party's nomination on Sunday (November 27) as its candidate in the March 4 presidential vote, paving the way for his return to the country's top office after four years as prime minister.
    The timing of the announcement, which was a certainty after Putin revealed in September that he planned to return to the Kremlin next year, appeared aimed to give United Russia a boost in a parliamentary election on Sunday amid flagging support.
    United Russia has been campaigning with thousands gathering for its official meetings, and produced television advertisements stressing stability and economic growth in the country as its main achievement.
    "This is a party which currently has power and does real things, that's why I work in the party framework, but also, first and foremost, I wouldn't work for a party I don't believe in. I believe in the future, (I believe) that it will be good, and that everything is fine now. I like how we live," party member and worker at one of its Moscow district offices, Maria Gavrilina told Reuters during a party meeting on Russian official holiday on November 4.
    Opinion polls suggest Putin, president from 2000-2008, will win the presidency despite recent declines in approval ratings. But some polls show his party could lose its constitutional two-thirds majority in the State Duma lower parliament house election, threatening to undermine Putin's control over the legislature and galvanize opponents as he prepares for at least six more years in power.
    "The United Russia Party, I think, is seen by the majority of people as a ruling party, as a party of officials, as a party of bureaucrats, as some kind of mechanism which allows the implementation of decisions that are made somewhere else," political analyst Andrei Kortunov told Reuters adding that principal decisions are being made in the Putin government and the president's administration.
    United Russia may face mistrust both in the capital and in province during the December elections. Opponents allege violations in the parliamentary campaign, but senior party officials deny opponents' allegations that the party might use its power to falsify elections.
    "Nobody, neither here at United Russia party headquarters, nor elsewhere sets as his or her goal to ignore the law, the rules. We are all in a competitive environment. There are also public organisations, there are monitors, there is the mass media, and they will not allow any violations," Andrei Vorobyov, United Russia party Executive Committee told Reuters.
    In Tula, the provincial capital 175 km (110 miles) south of Moscow, the dominance United Russia has built up over a decade in power is evident along Lenin Avenue, the main thoroughfare that bisects the prominent industrial city of half a million people with metalworking, engineering and chemical industries.
    The party's push to maintain that dominance is just as visible, and party opponents claim the authorities have already started to use fraudulent election tactics.
    The Communists and the liberal Yabloko party said bosses at some firms were putting pressure on employees to pick up tickets enabling them to vote outside their districts and surrender the documents, which could then be used to stuff ballot boxes.
    "Top managers of factories in the Tula region make their employees hand over their remote voting cards on a mass scale, and we think that every card will be used for voting several times. We also expect fake ballots to be cast on a massive scale. So for the competition here, it looks like it's hard to win with these falsifications," Yabloko's Tula province campaign chief, Vladimir Dorokhov told Reuters, adding that for United Russia, to win two-thirds of the Tula vote would be impossible without big falsifications.
    According to a July survey by Russian prominent pollster Levada Centre, 53 percent of respondents said the election's outcome would be determined by the authorities.
    However, the party can rely on voters like Yuri Panferov from the town of Dubna, some 40 kilometres from Tula, who is sure the Putin's party deserves trust.
    Yuri, who says he is an educated lawyer, returned from Tula to his home to develop amateur sports in Dubna, where the milk factory and the ironworks were the life-blood of the town until they closed in the 1990s.
    "We should support the president's party because it has led the country out of the financial crisis. We started to get pensions and salaries, jobs are being created. What else do we need?" Yuri asked.
    A billboard over a jumble of shops on the muddy main street of this run-down town shows the face of the provincial governor, the logo of Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party and an upbeat message: "Change for the better!"
    In Tula, the governor's face stares from billboards like the one in Dubna, each with a slogan pitching United Russia to rush hour drivers choking the dark streets morning and night.
    Unlike Yuri, some locals have lost confidence in United Russia.
    "I think that United Russia Party has done nothing in particular to improve our life," Tula resident Alexander Dolgov said.
    Tula province governor Vladimir Gruzdev, a supermarket magnate-turned-politician who was appointed by President Dmitry Medvedev, has been traversing the province accompanied by his government members to hear citizens' views before the vote.
    Visiting the town of Chern, some 100 kilometres south of Tula, he vowed to help people solve social problems such as inadequate electricity, water and gas supplies, bad roads and lack of proper apartments and kindergartens. Gruzdev lamented that he couldn't help everyone, as the regional budget doesn't have enough money for every social program.
    However, Gruzdev said if his region turns out the vote for United Russia, it will embolden him and give him more leverage to lobby federal authorities for regional interests.
    "We shouldn't be shy. I have been a member of the United Russia party from the moment it was founded. I have never been a member of any other party and I think that I shouldn't be ashamed of the work I have done," Gruzdev told Reuters.
    He said he had not set any specific vote target for United Russia in the province but was working for the trust and support of the people as the party's main task in the election.
    "An election is always unpredictable. We are not making any (voting) plans. We are trying to gain people's trust in this work, and this is our main goal. As for upcoming elections, in this case, it's up to the will of every citizen. I hope that the Tula region people will support me. I am sure of it," Gruzdev said.
    At the height of the 2008-09 economic crisis, the Duma, dominated by United Russia, rubber-stamped government backed legislation freeing billions of dollars of bailout cash from the country's reserves to pump into the economy.
    Russia remained largely stable throughout the crisis, despite the rouble's devaluation and a rise in unemployment. Putin and United Russia's popularity ratings remained high.
    The two-thirds majority in the current Duma enabled United Russia to make changes to the constitution such as an extension of the presidential term to six years from four - a move that may leave Putin at the helm until 2024.
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