The United Russia Party was instructed to begin the debates inside the party over its ideological future, and the ruling party began this week to discuss its prospects for the first time after a quite dissatisfactory result at the parliamentary elections, the RBC daily writes. If the transformation brings the party to the right-centrist wing, Dmitry Medvedev may head the party this year, the newspaper claimed. At first it was decided to abandon the label of the ruling party that the president had already made a hint about to United Russia after the elections. The public leaders are questioned about what should be changed in the party. All public ideas are expected to analyze and put up for debates inside the party. The electorate should be attracted for debates as well.
The work should be finished by the United Russia congress next summer. The congress will probably raise the question of not only the ideology, but also the party structure. On Monday, a United Russia member Irina Yarovaya already stated that some purges should be made in the party. “We should get rid of those, who use the political system in order to solve their personal problems,” she warned.
The party lacks a clear ideology. However, chairman of the State Duma Committee for Constitutional Legislation and State Construction Vladimir Pligin insists “to continue cooperation with the middle class and to build this policy according to the principles of rivalry.” Meanwhile, the idea discussed in the authorities long ago was voiced that “the ideology of the party should be somewhere between right-liberal and right-conservative wings.”
The United Russia partisans said that after several changes in the party structure and its ideology, which can finally take a more rightist and conservative shade, Dmitry Medvedev may lead the party. Numerous opinions of political experts are in favour of these expectations. Vladimir Putin “will quit the post of the United Russia leader sooner or later,” and there are some prerequisites that the United Russia Party will not go along the path of self-destruction in next five years, because this tendency will provoke a parliamentary crisis.
The general director of the Centre of Political Information Alexei Mukhin believes that Dmitry Medvedev will most likely head United Russia, but the party should change for this purpose. The political scientist recalled that the attempts to make some changes in United Russia were taken long ago and many times by stronger politicians than Dmitry Medvedev, but the party remains the ruling one all the same.
The Kremlin is cautious about such prospects. The RBC daily source noted that though at a meeting with the parliamentary parties Medvedev did not rule out his leadership in the party, even if it sides with the opposition, the situation changes quite quickly, so a final decision was not taken yet.