Centrist Factions in Russia Unite to Form Single Party

Three centrist political movements formally united in Moscow on Saturday to form a single party that is expected to control a majority of parliament and carry out the political agenda of President Vladimir V. Putin.

The party, called the Union of Unity and Fatherland, seems destined to become the single most powerful political organization in Russia--a status once enjoyed by the Communist Party, which still has the loyalty of one-quarter to one-third of the electorate. The founding movements of the new party were Unity, Fatherland and All-Russia. The last two have been closely aligned for two years.

Addressing Saturday’s founding congress, Putin said the new party should be moderate and constructive and should not jump the gun by calling itself the ruling party of Russia.

“The era of political radicalism is becoming part of the past,” Putin said. He urged the delegates to work hard, especially in regions outside Moscow, “for the sake of creating a truly powerful and modern political force in Russia.”

Putin has made it a priority of his administration to work toward the elimination of smaller political parties and create a system of several strong ones.

Elected to be the chief among three co-chairmen of the new party was Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia’s emergencies minister and one of Putin’s closest confidants. Shoigu was the leader of the Unity party.

The remaining co-chairs are Moscow Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov, of Fatherland, and Mintimer S. Shaimiyev, president of the Russian Federation’s Tartarstan region, from the All-Russia party.

Shoigu said that the unified party hopes to “consolidate society based on the constructive policies” of Putin and that its aim is to win a majority in future elections.

“We must stop dividing everybody into people who are ours and people who are not. We must stop counting who is on whose side. As of today, we are all members of this party. We are all comrades doing our work,” Shoigu said.

“We are faced with one common task. This task is to unite the society behind the creative course conducted by the president,” he said.

In 1999 elections, Unity and Fatherland-All Russia were political rivals, both striving for the center ground. Unity emerged the leader, toppling Luzhkov’s presidential ambitions.

Despite their past political enmity, the parties had similar ideologies and in recent months had edged closer. Along with some other allies, they controlled the lower house of parliament, the State Duma.

Dmitri Y. Furman, a political analyst, said the new party will be all but unassailable.

“What happened today is the reestablishment of the former Communist Party of the Soviet Union, only this time without Communists and their ideological dogmas,” he said. “It will tolerate the existence of a small left-wing Communist Party alongside it and a dwarfish and marginal right-wing party.”

Furman believes the party’s existence will divide Russian society into two groups: loyalists and the opposition.

“It is like going back to the times of the Party and the rest of the society,” he said.

Sergei A. Markov, director of the Institute of Political Studies, a Moscow think tank, said the union is undoubtedly Russia’s new ruling party.

“It is the only party of big chiefs, and it has no competitors in this field,” he said, predicting it will harness at least one-third of voters and become the biggest faction in parliament.

“Their political task is to form a majority government. So far, they don’t have a stable majority in the current parliament,” Markov said. “On all economic issues, the pro-Kremlin legislators have to vote with the Union of Right Forces. And on all issues connected with the strengthening of the state, they have to vote with the Communists. This majority is far from being strong or solid.”

The members of the new party will hold 120 seats in the State Duma. The Communists control 85 seats, and the pro-Communist Agroindustrial faction has 42. Of the remainder, two liberal parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, have 19 and 37 seats, respectively.

Markov predicted that the number of parties in Russia will continue to decline, possibly to four main groups: the Union of Unity and Fatherland as the strong right-center conservative party; the Communists as a left-wing party; the pro-Western Union of Right Forces; and Yabloko, with a human rights and environmental agenda.

A second possibility is that the new party will emerge as virtually unopposed and that any struggle for government power will involve opposing factions within it rather than outside rivals.

Putin, a former KGB agent who became part of former President Boris N. Yeltsin’s entourage, was named by Yeltsin as his preferred heir shortly before Yeltsin stepped down as president on Dec. 31, 1999.

After serving as acting president, Putin won the presidency in elections in March 2000. Even though his popularity is remarkably high--with approval ratings around 75%--he has never had a political party of his own.

Instead, he has relied on his contacts in the security services, in the Yeltsin “family” and among various oligarchs to consolidate his hold on the reins of power.

Similarly, Yeltsin made a point of standing above the political fray, refusing to identify with any party.

Shoigu said the new party “will achieve what a majority of the people desire so much: The political situation in the country will become clear and predictable.”

Shaimiyev said the new party will stand for a strong state and federation--an allusion to resisting separatist tendencies in some regions.

Among its priorities, he said, will be greater freedom of speech, a market economy, the creation of a favorable climate for small business, private ownership of farmland and the creation of a civil society.

Luzhkov said the party will promote efficient central authority.

“We will never be able to accomplish any of the goals proclaimed without a strong state,” he said. “The country needs an efficient authority acting as the guarantor of political stability and inviolability of the constitutional system.”

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Times staff writer Robyn Dixon contributed to this report.