22 December 2003 05:33
Berezovsky wants to build, finance Russian opposition to Putin
Controversial Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky, exiled since October 2001 in Britain where he obtained political asylum, wants to mount and finance a political opposition in Russia, he said in an interview with The Independent. "I don't have political ambitions for myself, I want to build an opposition. But if no one could be found to be the leader, then I would take it, yes," Berezovsky told the British daily. The Independent said Berezovsky believed Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to reverse the decentralising and deregulating reformes introduced by former president Boris Yeltsin and that the logical result of this course would be a "dictatorship". Putin had made enemies of the regional governors, business circles, the media and the army, The Independent said, quoting Berezovsky as telling it: "Those four elites are very powerful; they understand that Putin is dangerous for Russia and for them." Russia's main liberal party said Sunday it would boycott next year's presidential elections, joining the protest of the other wing of the democratic opposition crushed in recent legislative polls. Two-time Russian presidential candidate, Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, announced after a two-day party congress that his party had decided in a vote not to field a candidate for the March 14 elections. "The current political situation in Russia is such that free, fair and genuinely competitive elections are not possible. In these conditions, the party considers it impossible to put forward its candidate," said Yavlinsky. The Yabloko no-show followed the example of another major liberal party, the Union of Right Forces (SPS), whose leaders announced on Saturday that it would not take part in the poll. SPS leaders said that the dominant state-controlled media were too deferential to Putin and that the liberal opposition stood no chance in the upcoming elections. Pro-Putin factions swept to power in a December 7 vote to the State Duma, or lower house of parliament. The Kremlin now holds a majority in the chamber that could allow it to alter the Russian constitution. Both SPS and Yabloko lost most of their Duma seats and have only a handful of representatives in the 450-seat chamber, down from nearly 50 in the previous legislature. The main opposition Communist party, which was heavily defeated by supporters of Putin in the parliamentary elections, backtracked last week on a threat to boycott the March presidential poll. Recent opinion polls gave Putin an approval rating of up to 80 percent, suggesting that he would sweep to victory. His nearest potential rivals, including Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, draw a maximum rating of around five percent.
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