The United Russia sees the initiative as "absolutely inadmissible", said Valeri Bogomolov, party Political Council Secretary and ideologist-in-chief, as he voiced his party's stance today.
"One can't explain the idea from the ideological, moral or any other point. The people [in the Central Commission] might be merely out to do someone a bad turn. That's a downright absurdity!" he said to a top party conference as it was analyzing the initiative.
"That's a ban on profession!" Mr. Bogomolov said about a prospective ban on a regional governor running on a party ticket unless he resigns from the gubernatorial office.
The United Russia is determined to insist on whatever limitations on party election funds abolished. "Purity and transparency" depend on it, he pointed out.
Alexander Veshnyakov, commission president, made the initiative public last month, in connection with a change in State Duma election patterns. Hopefuls will no longer run for parliament's lower house on constituencies but on party tickets only.
The United Russia will not survive a huge inflow as people will be anxious en masse to join the parliamentary majority party, warned Mr. Bogomolov.
Characteristically, United Russia members even now account for a third of Russian regional governors, he added.
The United Russia is not siding with Mikhail Fradkov's Cabinet, even though it does not intend to follow Lefts and form a shadow Cabinet of its own, Mr. Bogomolov went on.
"We don't think it's a government of our own-we have a man and a half on it. But then, a shadow Cabinet is a child's game, while the United Russia came into adult life the day it was set up," he said.
As he explained his point, there is only one United Russia member on the Cabinet-Deputy Premier Alexander Zhukov. As for the "half man", he meant Fedor Andreyev, associated party member. "True, there is also [Sergei] Shoigu, but he is not of our party. He merely sides with it." Mr. Bogomolov was referring to the federal Minister for Emergency and Calamity Relief, who led the United Russia ticket on the latest parliamentary election, of December 7, 2003.
