MOSCOW, December 12 (Itar-Tass) — Russia’s former finance minister Alexei Kudrin believes that emergence of an authoritative right-wing force should become the political outcome of the elections to the State Duma.
“Six months ago, when the discussion about the Right Cause party was underway, everybody expressed concern over the lack of an authoritative force on the right flank,” he said in an interview with the Vedomosti business daily published on Monday. “Today it became clear that this deficit turned more acute than we could ever imagine.”
“Today we can say confidently that the demand for the creation of such a structure is so high that its creation will obligatorily begin. Now we will see the processes of consolidation of liberal and democratic forces,” he said.
Kudrin said he was absolutely confident of this and “was ready to contribute to this,” however at present, there was no talk about a remote opportunity to lead this process.
“The voting at the State Duma elections is a blow to the ruling party. Unfortunately, United Russia was found failing to fulfil its promises. Protection of business, elimination of corruption, the creation of a fair judicial system and the government’s presence in economy – no drastic changes occurred in all these areas despite promises,” Kudrin said.
The elections to the lower house of parliament “became an interesting phenomenon” – “a political discussion became more heated, citizens’ activity increased” and “people well showed their preferences.” “United Russia is losing support,” he said. “The ruling party has to search for compromises with other parties. Their motions will not be passed so easily as before.”
“At these elections we faced a peculiar situation: citizens want to fix and discuss honesty and legitimacy of the elections themselves” and “in this sense people are dissatisfied with the election returns.”
Kudrin considers it fair to raise the issue of resignation of the chairman of the central election commission, Vladimir Churov.
“If this is not done, next elections will pass in a slipshod manner. Disregard of evident violations casts doubt on these elections’ objectivity,” he said.