"union Of Right Forces" May Become Russia's Strongest Democratic Party

The "Union of Right Forces" (SPS) should become the country's strongest democratic party, chairman of the SPS federal political council, a well-known Russian politician, Boris Nemtsov said addressing the second congress of his party. According to him, the main thing for the right forces now is to preserve unity of their ranks and create a powerful democratic party. The SPS leader stressed that in recent years the state authorities actually fulfilled the SPS programme. He believes that over the past year the SPS contributed to the adoption of a number of important draft laws, including the land, tax and criminal procedure codes, and a package of laws on the judicial reform. According to him, although the SPS is not a ruling party, it nevertheless influenced the adoption of political decisions taking a consistent and responsible position and stimulating the authorities to pursue a liberal policy, supporting them in their policy of reforms and criticising them for deviating from the principles of liberalism. The delegates to the SPS second congress are to transform this public and political organisation into a political party and to adopt its rules and programme.