“Vedomosti”: “No Time for Innovation”
Dmitry Medvedev encouraged United Russia to promote modernisation in general and to reform the party itself. The party's leaders refused to develop the president's ideas.
Two speeches were expected to set the tone for the party's eleventh congress in St Petersburg: President Dmitry Medvedev was expected to repeat his ideas on modernisation and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was to clarify how to implement them. However, after a short welcoming speech the prime minister spoke of stabilisation and the budget policy for 2010.
Vladimir Putin did not say a word on doubling the GDP or on industrial growth; rather he focused on supporting certain companies and targeting inflation. After the session the chairman of the organisation Business Russia Boris Titov noted the discrepancy of this speech from the president's call for a transition from stabilisation to modernisation. Political scientist Alexei Markin believes that Vladimir Putin did not repeat the president's message as this would be an acknowledgement of Medvedev's initiative. The prime minister sees modernisation as an instrument for achieving certain goals rather than a goal itself.
Dmitry Medvedev suggested that United Russia should be reformed. The party needs to be more modern in order to avoid becoming outmoded and break "its bad political habits": some of its regional offices confuse democratic procedures with administrative ones.
Vladimir Putin called for the party's reformation in April 2008 when he became its leader. The party purged the ranks, tightened procedure for membership and elections to the general council. The prime minister did not mention the reforms this time and only asked that the party not be looked at like an elite club, membership in which ensures a good career.
General Council Chairman Boris Gryzlov also expressed his satisfaction with the state of the party. The only problem he sees is the absence of a strong opposition: the Communist Party has nothing to offer except for the "expropriate and divide" concept, the Liberal Democratic Party "is simply making noise and doing nothing".
United Russia's new program, intended for 10 years, does mention the need for modernising but the driving ideology is conservatism. Boris Gryzlov clarified how these ideas can be reconciled - the party's conservatism is unique: it is open for continuous creative renewal and thus able to foster the country's modernisation.
There are three innovations in the party's charter: party members are now obliged to participate in all pre-election debates, primaries have been introduced for nominating candidates and the party's councils now can recommend that a municipal or regional chief shall be removed from office based on reports.
The party's Deputy Secretary of the General Council's Presidium Sergei Neverov told Vedomosti that the measures were sufficient for reforming United Russia and that the process would continue in every region. Primaries and open discussions will be introduced at every level. From now on, all party members nominated for any position will have to report to the party's departments.
Political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov believes that United Russia can be reformed from the outside. There was such an effort when the withdrawal of parties from elections was prohibited in autumn of 2009. But the effort failed since nobody prohibited falsifying the elections. He underscores that the party will not reform following Dmitry Medvedev's request until Vladimir Putin affirms, but he has yet to do this.
Natalia Kostenko
