>
>-What are the ideological differences between KPRF, United Russia and
>Mother
>-land. If I´ve been not misunderstanding you, it seems the three parties
>-have very similar programs(?)
>
Homeland a Force to Be Reckoned With?
By Catherine Belton Staff Writer
Igor Tabakov / MT
It was founded less than four months ago by diminutive economist Sergei Glazyev, a Communist deputy, together with an unlikely sidekick, presidential envoy for Kaliningrad Dmitry Rogozin.
But, despite appearing from nowhere, the Homeland bloc appears to be gathering up enough support to encroach on votes normally headed for well-entrenched, existing forces: the Communists and even liberal parties such as Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, or SPS.
Homeland's campaign, in fact, is building up so much steam that the leaders of SPS, Anatoly Chubais, Irina Khakamada and Boris Nemtsov, warned that their pro-business faction risked being pushed out of the next parliament by the bloc Sunday.
They said that if the bloc got in, the Duma could end up being dominated by a "national-socialist" alliance consisting of Homeland, Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party, pro-Kremlin United Russia and the Communists.
Homeland's secret? A very simple vote-winning platform: Take away the huge windfall profits being reaped by the handful of oligarchs that own the nation's vast natural resources and hand them back to the state. A healthy handful of nationalism is thrown in by Rogozin, who heads the Duma's international affairs committee and in most public appearances promises to protect the interests of Russians abroad.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, appears to have lent Homeland a hand. The bloc has received extensive coverage on national state-controlled television.
For the voter, the campaign does not appear to be the usual bluster. Glazyev's earnest demeanor and the reputation he has built over the past decade as one of the nation's most prominent economists all give him weight.
Take one TV ad from the Homeland campaign: Glazyev stands before a full lecture hall, behind him on a blackboard are pie charts splitting up the nation's wealth. Glazyev proposes raising taxes on natural resource owners and spreading their wealth back to pensioners and government workers.
The bloc's slogans include "Return the wealth of the nation to the people!" and "For social justice!"
Voters appear to trust Glazyev.
"Glazyev is an economist and has a plan for Russia's economy," said Slava, a taxi driver. "I'm going to vote for him."
Glazyev's pitch could not have come at a better time. Just as he is making his case for a redistribution of wealth, the alleged crimes of the nation's marauding oligarchs have hit prime-time news slots with the arrest of Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky. "Glazyev has successfully managed to mine the theme of this election campaign: taking away the windfall profits from the oligarchs," said Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst. "He is a hugely popular figure, and he has been strongly supported by the Kremlin."
"The Kremlin created a number of groups to splinter off and take votes from the Communist Party. There is one to fit every possible turn in voter mood," said Nikolai Petrov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, referring to other groups reportedly created by the Kremlin in recent months such the Russia's Rebirth-Party of Life bloc. "It turned out that in this climate, Homeland got the winning ticket."
With the Communist campaign seemingly in tatters amid "massive internal struggles at every level from the local right up the top," Homeland will get a lot of the protest vote that in previous years would have gone to the Communists, sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky said. "The Communist Party electorate is decomposing daily. Homeland is hitting the nails in the coffin."
Glazyev's low-key approach to wealth redistribution has worked before. Just over a year ago, in what many call his debut as a politician in his own right, Glazyev ran as an outsider in Krasnoyarsk's gubernatorial election. He came from nowhere, and with apparently little funding, to finish third, pushing the two leading candidates both heavily backed by big business into a runoff. Catching local pundits blindsided by his run, all began proclaiming "the Glazyev factor."
Now, with Homeland, SPS and Yabloko seemingly neck and neck, it might be the "Glazyev factor" that determines whether his bloc breaks the 5 percent barrier to get in the Duma.
This time, though, it might also play against Glazyev. He might have done too well. "Now the fear is that Glazyev could become a serious presidential candidate from the left," said Andrei Piontkovsky, an independent political analyst. "The Kremlin's backing via its administrative resource is going to be key in whether it gets in or not."
"In the last few days, the Kremlin has been changing its relations to Glazyev," said Stanislav Belkovsky, head of the Council for National Strategy, a think tank that published a controversial report predicting a "creeping coup" by the oligarchs last summer. "It turns out he has presidential ambitions that he has not agreed upon with the Kremlin."
Glazyev would not say at a news conference Thursday whether he was heading for a presidential run, saying only he wanted to fight the Duma battle first.
He denied reports that he had received Kremlin backing and funding from metals magnate Oleg Deripaska's Base Element. "These allegations we are being funded by the Kremlin are getting ridiculous," he said. "Why would we be fighting with United Russia and SPS -- all pro-Kremlin parties -- if this was the case?" He said he would form an anti-Kremlin patriotic alliance with the Communists if his bloc gets in.
That's something the Kremlin could regret. "If Homeland gets in, which looks likely, one has to wonder whether with all the Kremlin's support, over time, this will be a Frankenstein that comes back to haunt them," said Michael McFaul, a political science professor at Stanford University who specializes in Russian elections. "They will inadvertently have created a problem for themselves in the long run."
Glazyev on Thursday appeared to recognize waning support from the powers-that-be. "Channel One has stopped showing us all this week. We're not on TV anymore," he said.
Meanwhile, one of his bloc's senior members, billionaire banker Alexander Lebedev, stepped down unexpectedly Thursday, claiming too much extremism from party leaders. But analysts said the move had probably come too late to effect Sunday's vote.
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2003/12/05/003.html
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