#15 - JRL 7208
Communist leader claims all patriotic forces of Russia rallied behind his party
ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 3 June: Leader of the Communist Party of Russia and of the National Patriotic Union of Russia Gennadiy Zyuganov claims that his party was able to "rally behind itself all the national patriotic forces", which will go to the Duma elections in one united political bloc and under the Communist Party's flag. This is how he commented, at the request of ITAR-TASS, on the joint statement of 20 leaders of "all the segments of the patriotic movement".

The statement calls on "all the patriotic forces of the country to put aside their ambitions, which are of minor importance at the given stage of confrontation, and to come out in one united front of Communists, farmers, young people, war and labour veterans, soldiers, Cossacks and other patriots of the country during the elections to the State Duma".

According to Zyuganov, "everybody recognizes the leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation", but its bloc will be legally formed and will get a name only in September. Judging by his explanations, the opposition fears lest the new electoral legislation, to which amendments are still being added, might be used against the Communists and their allies if they proved unable to form the electoral alignment with sufficient juridical efficiency. Therefore, Zyuganov has repeatedly and categorically opposed the idea of forming a bloc of the Communist Party and the so-called national-patriotic forces, believing this could be interpreted as a violation of the new laws.

Proposals to form such an alignment were made, among others, by the chairman of the Executive Committee of the National-Patriotic Union, Gennadiy Semigin, and the leader of the Congress of Russian Communities, Sergey Glazyev, which was regarded as an expression of opposition to Gennadiy Zyuganov. However, Glazyev, who recently came out for the formation of a new "broad national-patriotic coalition" outside the Communist Party of Russia, has signed the above-said "statement of twenty leaders". Local analysts believe this puts an end to the period of his confrontation with the leadership of the Communist Party of Russia.