MOSCOW, August 29 (RIA Novosti)-Three of Russia's smaller political parties are poised to merge, a party leader and the speaker of Russia's upper chamber of parliament said Tuesday.
Sergei Mironov, who leads the Party of Life and is speaker of the Federation Council, said the move would unite the left-leaning Party of Life and Rodina (Motherland) with the Party of Pensioners.
"We have one aim: to create a new, serious political force that would be stronger than each party individually," Rodina leader Alexander Babakov told a news conference.
Today's announcement came in the wake of a July 26 news conference held by Babakov and Mironov, who then said their two parties would unite to fight regional and parliamentary elections next year.
Mironov said the new tri-party alliance would have about 500,000 members, which would bring it close to Russia's traditional left-wing party, the Communist Party, and its 580,000 members.
Neither the Party of Life nor the Pensioners won enough votes in the 2003 election to take up seats in the lower chamber of parliament, the State Duma. The Communists won 12.6% of the vote.
Although Rodina, running as an electoral bloc with a campaign focusing on the disparity between many ordinary people and tycoons, stormed into the Duma at the first attempt with just over 9% of the vote, it has since been beset by problems. Leaders have come and gone, and it courted controversy with a television advertisement in the campaign for the Moscow legislature this year that was called overtly racist by many and was eventually banned.
Mironov, who alongside Babakov was also joined by Party of Pensioners chairman Igor Zotov, said a working name of "Motherland, Pensioners, Life - a Union of Trust" had been chosen for the new organization.
Zotov said his party had insisted on the word "pensioners" being included in the name because as the three groups were on an equal footing, while Mironov added that one of the new party's principles was to "subjugate personal ambitions and group interests to the party's common interests."
However, all three leaders dismissed the suggestion that the new party was a Kremlin project. Media speculated over the summer a new, controllable left-wing party could be established at the behest of the Kremlin authorities.
The Federation Council speaker said the new party would take up opposition to United Russia, the current "party of power," which holds a massive majority in the Duma.
"We oppose the very essence of United Russia as the monopoly political force of the part of power," said Mironov, who is thought to be close to President Vladimir Putin.
"We are in favor of a genuine multi-party system in Russia and, therefore, are in opposition to United Russia," he said.
The leaders said the party would run in the 2007 Duma election and would consider who would run as a candidate in the 2008 presidential election. Mironov finished last in the 2004 presidential contest with only 0.8% of the vote and a then Rodina leader, economist Sergei Glazyev, came in third with just over 4%. Putin won by a landslide with 71%.
"We will be able to make a clearer decision on a candidate for the presidency based on the results of the 2007 parliamentary elections," Babakov said.
Mironov said it was too early to talk about a candidate and he added that the party could accept other forces.
"We are open to broad range of social-democratic force and consultations are already underway," he said.
He added that the new allies could join but only at the first joint conference, though he gave no details as to when that might happen.
The Federation Council speaker was similarly coy about who was providing the money for the new project, although Babakov is thought to have amassed a personal fortune of billions of dollars.
"How we decide financing issues is our private matter," Mironov said.
