Sergey Yugov: Russian Communist Party does not have much of its influence left

A special session of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) took place in Moscow on Saturday. Two hundred and fifty-one delegates from 88 federation units took part in the session, governors and local legislators.

The major goal of the session was the transformation of the public and political organization into the party, pursuant to the law “About Political Parties.” It was decided to re-register the party at the Ministry for Justice and to re-elect the auditing committee and the central electoral committee. Its members discussed issues pertaining to the transformation of the regional departments of the party. There were no considerable changes in the structure of the CPRF.

The participants of the session talked about the goals of the party for the nearest future. As a matter of fact, the goals are still the same, that was clear from the report made by the chairman of the Central Committee of the party, Gennady Zyuganov, “About the political situation and the goals of the party.”

The major goal of the members of the party is preparations for the regular parliamentary elections and, possibly, early presidential elections. The communists will also struggle for correcting the legislation about the elections. Someone from the hall offered to give the next presidential elections away to Vladimir Putin, for nobody doubts that he will be the winner of the presidential election of 2004. A candidate from the opposition was offered to be nominated in six or even nine years only. Gennady Zyuganov had to admit that the party has its influence - both political and economic - only in the patriotic regions of the country. A communist majority in the Russian parliament is now in the past.

Gennady Zyuganov could not but make some traditional statements that Putin “was betraying the geopolitical inheritance of the millennial super-power,” and that “the current policy of the Russian government was the third stage of the treason.” However, the representatives of “the only party of the opposition with a real program” were read a welcoming letter written by Vladimir Putin. It seems that the CPRF is pulling away from the real struggle for the power, limiting itself to the declarations and slogans only. Well, there is nothing surprising here, because the average age of the delegates was 50 years.

Sergey Yugov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov