KRO LAUNCHES POPULIST PROGRAM, CALLS FOR CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM.

At its second national conference, held in Moscow over the weekend, the nationalist Congress of the Russian Communities (KRO) called for a referendum on constitutional amendments limiting the powers of the executive branch. Addressing the conference, KRO chairman Yuri Skokov stressed that the main goal of the proposed referendum is to increase the public accountability of Russia’s president and government. Skokov described the proposed referendum as "more crucial than the forthcoming elections to the Duma". He announced that KRO is launching a country-wide campaign to collect the 2 million signatures required for initiating the referendum.

The conference adopted KRO’s electoral program, which calls for reviving "Great Russian statehood". The economic part of the program calls for a more socially-oriented privatization and more equitable distribution of property, cessation of the internal borrowing, and "mobilization of domestic resources based on the solidarity of the Russian workers and entrepreneurs". Economist Sergei Glazyev, one of KRO’s leaders and author of the economic section of the program, called for protectionist measures to support domestic producers. (10)

Lebed Advocates Authoritarian Path To Democracy.