Russia’s Communist Party Chief Reelected

Russia’s Communist Party, which has been pushed increasingly into the back seat in recent months, stuck with a known quantity Sunday, reelecting as its leader two-time presidential loser Gennady A. Zyuganov.

The party, which ruled every aspect of public life during Soviet times--when it had 18 million members--remains the largest group in parliament, but in the past decade it has found itself on the outside of policymaking and plush government jobs.

Zyuganov and other leaders declared at a weekend congress that the party, which now lists 547,000 members, is ready to lead active opposition to the policies of President Vladimir V. Putin.

Zyuganov told delegates that the party will confront Putin’s vision of Russia after initially giving him a chance when he became acting president after Boris N. Yeltsin, an implacable foe of the Communists, resigned at the end of last year.

Since Putin came to power, Zyuganov said, “it must be said that the hopes of the Russian people for a change in the course of state policy have not been justified.”

He recited a long list of policies that Communists find objectionable: discussion of legislation on land sales, budget plans ignoring social issues and proposals to cut the armed forces and cooperate with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“We are a responsible opposition,” he said. “We will continue to have a dialogue with authorities. But we absolutely cannot accept policies which are destructive for the country.”

Zyuganov, whose authority is generally unchallenged within the party, lost the 1996 presidential election to Yeltsin, who was backed by a powerful group of business and media interests. He came in a distant second to Putin in March.

The party’s structures remain well entrenched in many regions of Russia, and Communist candidates were well placed to win several key local elections taking place Sunday.

In Sunday’s elections in 11 areas spread across Russia’s 11 time zones, several regional governors were likely to win reelection. But some were not running again after Putin’s reform of Russia’s power structures denied governors the right to sit in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament.