Union of Right Forces for coalition

The draft program statement of the Union of Right Forces (SPS) given to the delegates of the party's congress that is taking place in Vinogradovo outside Moscow voices the necessity for SPS to participate in the democratic coalition that is being created for participation in the next Duma elections. (At the December 7, 2003 elections SPS and Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko failed to clear the five percent hurdle to be represented in Russian parliament's lower house).

"The congress believes it expedient to take part in the elections in the framework of a single list together with representatives of those political forces that share SPS's fundamental values," says the document.

The party's political council did not put the issue of leader election onto the agenda. The program statement that has not been confirmed yet says that the party will not elect the chairman of the party's political council.

"The public leader of SPS must be an independent and charismatic figure even if he/she is not equal to former co-chairpersons, each of whom is a personality of historical scale, then at least comparable to them by renown and authority," says the draft manifesto.

Four SPS co-chairpersons - Yegor Gaidar, Anatoly Chubais, Irina Khakamada and Boris Nemtsov - sent in their resignation, taking upon them the responsibility for the defeat at parliamentary elections in 2003.

The draft program statement recognizes that even being "a party of the Garden ring [SPS is ironically called in this way, because it lacks a real wide social basis], SPS gradually lost the positions of a real expresser of the capital elites' mood."

The party intends to not only restore its reputation of "projectors of the future," but to also extend the number of its supporters among other social strata, making stress upon work in the regions.