Edgar Savisaar to attend the congress of pro-Kremlin party
20.11.2009, 15:25A delegation of Estonian Centre Party headed by chairman Edgar Savisaar is going to attend the congress of pro-Kremlin United Russia in St. Petersburg.
The delegation consisting of Savisaar, Ain Seppik, Mailis Reps and Monika Batrakova will leave Tallinn today.
Centre Party delegation has attended all congresses of United Russia since 2004 when the two parties signed a cooperation protocol in 2004.
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In 2006 Savisaar was in Moscow as minister of economic affairs and met with Boris Gryzlov- the leader of the State Duma.
According to Wikipedia, United Russia is the major political party in the Russian Federation. United Russia supports President Dmitry Medvedev, and is currently the largest political party in the Russian Federation. On April 15, 2008, Vladimir Putin accepted the nomination to become chairman of the party.
United Russia was founded in April 2001 as a merger of centrist Fatherland - All Russia party led by Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and the pro-government Unity Party of Russia led by emergency minister Sergey Shoigu. United Russia made rapid gains in federal and local elections due to the popularity of its leading figure, Vladimir Putin.
A number of ministers in Putin's and Medvedev's governments and in many regional governments and other senior government officials in Russia are members of the party. The long-time head of United Russia was Speaker of the State Duma and former Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov, elected party leader in November 2002. On April 15, 2008, Putin accepted a nomination to become the party's chairman.
By April 2008, United Russia was claiming 1.98 million members.
Foreign media and observers describe United Russia as a pure "presidential party" with the main goal of just securing the power of the Russian President in the Russian parliament. The vast majority of officeholders in Russia are members of the party, hence it is sometimes described as a "public official party" or "administration party." Because of this, it is also often labeled the 'party of power'[6], just like Our Home – Russia in the 1990s. Within Russia, the party follows a centralist course.
The former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev has characterised United Russia as a party of bureaucrats. He also described it as "the worst version of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union."
Currently United Russia holds 315 of the 450 seats in the State Duma. During local elections of October 11, 2009 United Russia won a majority of seats in almost every Russian municipality. Opposition candidates claim they were hindered from campaigning for the elections and some were denied places on the ballot. There are also accusations of widespread ballot stuffing and voter intimidation. Support for the party was 53% in a poll held in October 2009.