The government is going to pay 50,000 roubles toward the purchase of a new car to anyone who brings a used car older than 10 years to the junkyard. This is only one of the many initiatives announced by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at the United Russia (UR) congress.
Almost three thousand people attended the congress at the Lenexpo pavilion. Ingush President Yunus-bek Yevkurov met Alexander Misharin, the new governor of the Sverdlovsk Region. Alexander Babakov, one of the leaders of A Just Russia party quickly disappeared in the crowd, trying to keep a low profile. Co-chairman of the Right Cause Boris Titov was circulating the room in a laid-back manner. Film director Fyodor Bondarchuk and saxophone player Igor Butman were standing nearby. Both have been elected to the party's Supreme Council. Viktor Yanukovich, leader of the Party of Regions, was the most popular politician with the media.
President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov entered the hall. "The floor is given to the president of the Russian Federation," announced Putin with obvious pleasure.
Medvedev was equally pleased to call UR "the ruling party." He praised it for actively participating in implementing anti-crisis measures, he repeated the main ideas of his address to the Federal Assembly on outdated agricultural methods and a policy toward a smart economy, and he suddenly said that UR would be able to preserve its dominant positions "only on one condition." Everyone expected him to say "if Putin joins the party," but he finished the sentence as follows: "If the party is capable of not only achieving stabilisation in the country but also of modernising its economy."
The president added that "the ruling party's position is not a permanent privilege," and that now it needs not simply party or parliamentary supervision (there are plenty of supervisors) but "specific results" in raising energy efficiency, producing medicine, and creating an "electronic government" (UR members must take part in all projects).
"However, UR will only achieve change if it changes itself," Medvedev said. He called for the party's modernisation: "The party must always keep up to date and not fall behind the times and its own voters. Regrettably, some regional affiliates of UR and other parties are still operating in a backward way and they limit their political activities to intrigues."
The president finished his address by saying: "We will properly serve our homeland together."
Party leader Putin was the next to speak. He emphasised that UR assumed political responsibility for the situation in the country during the crisis and kept its promise not to allow another collapse on the scale of those in 1991 and 1998. Putin then went on to speak about unresolved problems. He estimated that by the end of the year the GDP would decline "by about 8%-8.5%." He was pleased to note that inflation was going down and would stand at 9.6% this year but warned that 9% or 10% inflation is still "inadmissibly high."
"Let's put it straight - on the whole people's actual incomes have decreased. We must do everything possible to change this in the near future!' he said.
Putin intends to resolve the problems engendered by the peak of the crisis by focusing on five main courses of action - ensuring steady operation of core enterprises and facilitating their technological modernisation; developing housing construction; encouraging high tech exports; supporting domestic demand, especially in the car industry, combating unemployment, in particular in single-industry cities. A proposal, which pays 50,000 roubles toward the purchase of a new car to anyone who brings a used car older than 10 years to the junkyard, is designed to aid the auto industry.
"I have no doubt that we will succeed!" the prime minister said in conclusion.
It took the delegates of the congress 4 hours and 15 minutes to elect new members to the Supreme Council (former Ingush President Murat Zyazikov and former Governor of the Orlov Region left the council, and St Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko joined it), to adopt amendments to the charter by introducing debates and primaries (for which Medvedev praised the party members) and to define their ideology.
"Russian conservatism relies on stability and development," Gryzlov explained. "The slogan ‘Go, Russia!' is a guide for action for the proponents of Russian conservatism."