The main intrigue of the United Russia congress in November may well be whether or not the Prime Minister will join the party.
On Friday it will be Vladimir Putin's first 100 days as the party's leader. And yet the ex-President is not officially a member of the party. Experts believe that the main intrigue of the Party's congress in November may well be the leader's acceptance or non-acceptance of membership of the Party he leads.
Vladimir Putin agreed to become the leader of United Russia at its extraordinary 9th Congress on April 15, but he officially became the party leader only after passing his role as the head of state to his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, on May 7.
In the last three months Vladimir Putin has proved that he is still at the helm of the state, but he has stopped short of becoming a card-carrying party member. From what this paper has learned, he is not averse to joining the party's ranks. But the ex-President said he would join United Russia only after it reformed its structure and changed its image.
It was important for Putin to reform the party by turning it from an electoral machine aimed at winning federal, regional and municipal elections into a full-fledged permanent political institution that develops dynamically and provides social lifts for the formation of a new elite.
Let it be noted that United Russia became a truly effective electoral instrument only after Putin became the head of the party list in the Duma elections. He started criticising the Party's image even during the election campaign. He told a meeting of workers in Krasnoyarsk that the party should get rid of time-servers and crooks who saw party membership as a means to further their selfish ends.
At the April congress Putin made the party promise that it would come to grips with the problem of stodginess to become a modern and open structure that society understands. The reaction to the leader's exhortations was swift. "The very fact that Vladimir Putin has become our leader is a great responsibility and a source of pride for us. After he became the head of United Russia we were able to launch the projects of modernizing and renewing the party," the chief of the party's executive committee, Andrei Vorobyov, assured Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
United Russia launched a multi-pronged effort: it started organising "public reception offices," forming its cadre, and injecting new life into the work of party discussion clubs.
The upcoming congress in November will review the results of the initial stage of modernisation presided over by Putin and unveil the updated strategy of the country's development up to 2020.
United Russia is expected to be presented as a national development institution. "Obviously, an effective political organisation capable of providing a link between government and society in implementing long-term development programmes is needed. United Russia is ready to become such an organisation", deputy secretary of the United Russia General Council, Yuri Shuvalov, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
Experts believe that it would be logical for Putin to consolidate the link (between United Russia and Strategy-2020) by receiving a party membership card. "In the last several months the party has changed, making it more probable that Putin will become a member", the Director-General of the Political and Economic Communications Agency, Dmitry Orlov, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
Even so, the party leader may choose to ignore the party's efforts to make him a card-carrying member and postpone the decision. "Whether Putin will accept a party card or not will be the main intrigue in the two weeks preceding the Congress. True, he may feel that it is too early yet to prevent the party from becoming complacent and losing motivation ahead of time," Dmitry Badovsky, Deputy Director of the Social Systems Institute reflects.