POLITICAL COMPETITION….

While the prime minister tries to reduce political competition, others are eager to leap into the arena:

–Democratic Russia, led until her murder by Galina Starovoitova, held a convention ten days ago and accused Primakov’s “government of communist trust” of leading Russia toward “impoverishment, collapse, another dead end and another revolution.” The convention agreed to form a single national slate in December’s parliamentary elections with Just Cause, the center-right coalition led by former government officials Anatoly Chubais, Boris Nemtsov and Yegor Gaidar. –Social Democrats in their party congress called for peoples’ tribunals to purge law enforcement agencies of corrupt officials. The SDs also came out for restoration of the death penalty. –Sergei Kirienko, who was prime minister last summer (May-August), appeared as chairman of a new organization called New Force, which he described as the vehicle of “the newly independent class.” He said he might support Primakov if he runs for president in 2000. –Konstantin Titov, governor of Samara on the Volga, announced formation of Russia’s Voice, a regions-based movement aimed at “genuine federalism.” –Albert Makashov, Duma deputy and retired army general, told an audience of cheering Cossacks that his Movement in Support of the Army (DPA) was really the Movement Against the Yids (DPZh). The Yids, he said, are “bold and impudent because … none of us have knocked at their doors and pissed through their windows yet.” Some parties have programs, some have pogroms.

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