Aaron
09-30-2008, 07:15 PM
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV is making an unlikely political comeback almost 17 years after stepping down as the Soviet Union's last leader.
The author of glasnost and perestroika reforms, now 77, said he and a business partner, Alexander Lebedev, a former KGB officer turned billionaire banker, would form a party to contest parliamentary elections in 2011.
While Mr Gorbachev has championed freedom of speech, he has conspicuously avoided direct criticism of Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister.
Yet he and Mr Lebedev described the Independent Democratic Party of Russia, the working title of the new movement, as an opposition group. The State Duma has three opposition parties but two are thought to be creations of the Kremlin. The third, the Communist Party, rarely opposes the Government on issues of substance.
Mr Lebedev says his party would be the "polite" opposition, eschewing the firebrand tactics of the former chess champion Garry Kasparov's The Other Russia movement, which was banned from contesting last year's parliamentary election. But he insisted his party would be prepared to criticise Mr Putin when necessary.
Mr Gorbachev is more likely to play a role as elder statesman in the party, but Mr Lebedev could emerge as leader. He sits in the Duma with a Kremlin-created opposition party, A Just Russia.
The focus of the new party is likely to be the financial sphere. Mr Lebedev accused the Government of failing to improve infrastructure and spending too much on defence.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/gorbachev-returns-to-politics/2008/09/30/1222651084439.html
The author of glasnost and perestroika reforms, now 77, said he and a business partner, Alexander Lebedev, a former KGB officer turned billionaire banker, would form a party to contest parliamentary elections in 2011.
While Mr Gorbachev has championed freedom of speech, he has conspicuously avoided direct criticism of Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister.
Yet he and Mr Lebedev described the Independent Democratic Party of Russia, the working title of the new movement, as an opposition group. The State Duma has three opposition parties but two are thought to be creations of the Kremlin. The third, the Communist Party, rarely opposes the Government on issues of substance.
Mr Lebedev says his party would be the "polite" opposition, eschewing the firebrand tactics of the former chess champion Garry Kasparov's The Other Russia movement, which was banned from contesting last year's parliamentary election. But he insisted his party would be prepared to criticise Mr Putin when necessary.
Mr Gorbachev is more likely to play a role as elder statesman in the party, but Mr Lebedev could emerge as leader. He sits in the Duma with a Kremlin-created opposition party, A Just Russia.
The focus of the new party is likely to be the financial sphere. Mr Lebedev accused the Government of failing to improve infrastructure and spending too much on defence.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/gorbachev-returns-to-politics/2008/09/30/1222651084439.html