RUSSIA: Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia's former Prime Minister and Kremlin critic has called on the opposition not to participate in the parliamentary elections

Record ID: 574841

  • Title: RUSSIA: Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia's former Prime Minister and Kremlin critic has called on the opposition not to participate in the parliamentary elections
  • Date: 23rd September 2007
  • Summary: POLICE WATCHING YOUNG PRO-KREMLIN ACTIVISTS WHISTLING AND SHOUTING AS KASYANOV SUPPORTERS ARRIVE TO PARTICIPATE IN CONGRESS KASYANOV'S MOVEMENT MEMBERS GETTING OFF BUSS AND NASHI ACTIVISTS SHOUTING AND HANDING OUT RAKES
  • Embargoed: 8th October 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA3XN8G5RTZJ7TGHIS14T4FADMO
  • Story Text: Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia's former Prime Minister and Kremlin critic has called on the opposition not to participate in the parliamentary elections, but to look ahead to the 2008 Presidential elections. As he spoke, protesters from the pro-Kremlin youth organisation Nashi picketed the event. The leader of Russia's Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov also accuses Putin of acquiring huge powers and says that Russia would be much better off under the Communists.
    Activists of Russia's pro-Kremlin youth movement who recently vowed to begin vigilante type patrols on the streets of Russian cities to preserve order during upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections picketed the site where Russia's former Prime Minister and Putin's vocal critic Mikhail Kasyanov, has convened his parties first congress on Saturday (September 22).
    Nashi movement has singled out Kasyanov, who has become an opposition leader since being sacked by Putin in 2004, for particular scorn. Nashi brands him as a foreign funded traitor who is mentally ill.
    Young activists piled up rakes, a symbol of repeated mistakes by stupid people, and tried to block the entrance to the premises where Kasyanov's People For Democracy and Justice opposition congress was gathering.
    The participants had to go through whistling and shouting lines of Nashi activists, but they did not look irritated by it.
    Kasyanov looked happy and joked when he was voting for transforming the People For Democracy and Justice movement into the party. He was unanimously elected as a leader of the party by 250 member congress.
    From the stage he addressed his party members and said he had no plans to take part in upcoming "imitation" of Parliamentary elections.
    "The election to the State Duma (Russia's Parliament) is not a real democratic process, it is just an imitation of it," he said.
    "My personal decision, as of a citizen of Russian Federation, is to boycott it."
    But he had a more positive take on the upcoming Presidential elections in 2008: "As for the second issue, which is the preparation for the election of a President of Russian Federation, my assessment is as follows: there are possibilities for participation in them, and more than that there are possibilities to win them and with your support I am fully ready to start fighting for it. Actually we have already started," Kasyanov said.
    Earlier, the leader of Russia's Communist Party said his party is the one to lead Russia out what he said was a critically difficult situation.
    Speaking to reporters on Saturday (September 22) after the first day of a party congress on the outskirts of Moscow, Gennady Zyuganov said the Communists offer an alternative to the current government.
    "I think everybody who is capable of thinking, everyone who works, writes, functions, ploughs, invents, will turn to us (the Communists). We are a real political force, capable of forming a government with socialist ideas, which can lead a peaceful democratic country out of a critically difficult situation," Zyuganov said.
    Addressing party members, Zyuganov said that President Vladimir Putin had more power at present than the Pharaoh of Egypt, the Tsar, and the Soviet Union's General Secretary combined. He also said that President Putin had four times more power than the quite powerful president of the United States.
    Zyuganov's party is the country's number two political force with 162,000 members.
    Zyuganov said his party, the successor to the all-powerful Soviet Communists, hoped to win at least a fifth of seats in elections this December for the State Duma (lower house of parliament). It currently has just over 10 percent of deputies.
    The Duma is dominated by United Russia, a party patronised by Putin, which enjoys a two-thirds majority.
    Zyuganov said he was the only real opponent of the Kremlin and added he was gaining new supporters as voters were getting bored with unfulfilled promises from United Russia, which he said represented the rich, with over 30 billionaires among its Duma members.
    The December elections will be closely watched as a dress rehearsal for a presidential vote next March.
    The most recent poll by the independent Yuri Levada Centre showed this week that the Communists could gain 18 percent of seats in December, while United Russia would secure 55 percent.
    Another pro-Kremlin party, Fair Russia, would get seven percent and the nationalist LDPR, which often votes with the government, would gain 11 percent.
    The Communists used to dominate the Duma in the 1990s during the turbulent years of Boris Yeltsin's presidency.
    Zyuganov did not run for president in 2004 when Putin was re-elected by more than 70 percent of votes. The outspoken Communist did not say if he would run for president in March 2008, when Putin must step down after two consecutive terms.
    Putin, who has huge influence over voters because of his very high poll ratings, has yet to say whom he will back.
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