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IT'S UP TO PUTIN'S ALLIES TO KNOCK UP RUSSIAN POLITICAL OPPOSITION - POLITICAL EXPERT

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MOSCOW, May 25 (RIA Novosti) - "The opposition parties that are presently active in Russia cannot either properly oppose authorities or come out with an alternative project of their own. That is why the country needs a new and constructive opposition," said Gleb Pavlovsky, prominent political expert and chief of the Moscow-based Foundation for Effective Politics.

"However paradoxical it may sound, it is a task for Putin's allies not opponents to set up an opposition. The country needs political parties closely linked with the population," he said at a public hearing on a "sovereign democracy" project President Vladimir Putin offered to Russia in his state of the nation message to the Federal Assembly.

Political experts and spin-doctors launched public debates on the project today.

Pavlovsky said the project came as the Kremlin's political signal against the bureaucracy. The response political elite had offered it showed that the Kremlin had neither strong supporters nor opponents to reckon with.

"We have no opposition that would be willing to tackle the problems offered. Debates are seething around persons not problems, just as before. Meanwhile, as the president has made it clear, he is determined to work with a system of political parties, rather than with one particular party."

The political expert said some opposition parties, self-styled "patriots" among them, aimed at change of regime outside legal patterns-taking after recent revolutions in several post-Soviet countries, which had the US backing.

"They are loudly calling to set Russian developments right through a governable revolution, which will rob the Russian rule of legitimacy, while the decision-making center will shift to another force-one outside Russia... No one wants an opposition like that," said Pavlovsky.

"Russia needs is a powerful bipartisan system that would guarantee the nation stability and political succession, no matter which of party comes to office. In Great Britain, for one, such a system emerged in response to a revolutionary threat," the expert said.

Pavlovsky said a bipartisan system might take shape as early as with the nearest parliamentary election in 2007. The United Russia party would certainly be one of the two parties. As for the other, it might emerge out of the United Russia's midst, as people of liberal and socialist inclinations were discernible among its members. Possibly, United Russia dropouts would make the second party-and Russia would have its own analogues of the Whigs and the Tories.

"The race has taken start. If an aspirant for the status of 'Party No. Two' comes from United Russia, it will be a strong rival," Pavlovsky said.

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