Izvestia: "Population can join front without registration"
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with member of the public in Pskov who are ready to join the Popular Front. He advised the people not to get distracted by the second and third fronts and said that the absence of official registration will not present a problem for associations wishing to join.
More and more people from all walks of life are joining the front each day – representatives of trade unions and the business community, performers, athletes, young people and veterans. They are worried that, having heard Putin's call to unite, other parties have also started establishing fronts.
"United Russia would perform its functions better if it weren't called a party. In this case there would have been no need to set up a front," writer Valentin Kurbatov said with generous indignation. "We have discredited the word 'party' too much. And now what? Zyuganov is establishing his own popular front, and Mironov has refused to join the Popular Front! It looks like we are having a civil war!"
Meanwhile, Putin is not worried in the least by the popularity of the front idea with the opposition forces.
"So what if someone else is setting up something similar?" he asked the writer. "This is the right of every political force. We need a bright political palette. This is the first point. Second, people who copy ideas cannot compete with the original. They will always produce weaker replicas of a serious movement. We should not expect them to be better."
The status of public organisations was another source of concern. Their leaders wondered how far the front's democracy will stretch. What if an organisation only has a page on a social network, but no official registration?
"We'd like to create an information resource that would allow people to monitor what has been done. Say, people could look at the roads and check on what they used to look like before and what they looik like after repairs. They could then put photos on the Web," Alexander Vasilyev, the leader of the movement Pskov's Messy Roads told Putin. "But we are not registered as a public organisation. We are only linked to a VKontakte page. Can we still join the front?"
"When I spoke about the formation of the Popular Front, I primarily meant the absence of red tape," the prime minister said, recalling the front's main principle. (United Russia member Andrei Isayev told Izvestia that the even front's leadership will consist of about 15 people only). "It does not matter whether your organisation is registered or not. What matters is that it is performing a specific function. There should be no institutional or bureaucratic obstacles. That's why participation is possible and joining the front is the right thing to do."
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United Russia registers institute
Chairman of the United Russia Supreme Council and State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov reported the registration of the Institute of Socioeconomic and Political Studies, which will draft the party's election programme.
"This institute will have to do a big job in order to formulate a common platform for the public forces coalition within the front," Gryzlov emphasised. He said that the programme should be a strategic document reflecting the interests of the majority of people.
Anastasia Savinykh
