FORMER BORDER SERVICE CHIEF NIKOLAEV TO CREATE CENTRIST PARTY.

Andrei Nikolaev, the former head of Russia’s Federal Border Service, elected to the State Duma on April 12, says that he intends to set up a centrist political party to campaign in the 1999 parliamentary elections. (Itar-Tass, April 13) Nikolaev said deputies from Moscow and the trade unions would form the nucleus of what he hopes will turn into a broad movement able to attract smaller centrist parties into its orbit. Nikolaev said his ally, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, could set up a similar "centrist nucleus" in the upper house of the Russian parliament. Luzhkov backed Nikolaev’s parliamentary bid, while Nikolaev has frequently expressed his support for Luzhkov. (Itar-Tass, April 13)

Also setting up their own political party are a group of senior citizens. They held the first congress of the Pensioners’ Party in Moscow on April 14. (RIA news agency, April 14) The party claims a potential base of forty million Russian retirees, most of whom at present vote for the Communist party.

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