Rodina
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Rodina (disambiguation).
| Rodina | |
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| Leader | Aleksander Babakov |
| Founded | August 2003 |
| Headquarters | Moscow |
| Political ideology | Socialism, nationalism, populism |
| International affiliation | none |
| Website | www.Rodina-NPS.ru |
| Russia |
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Rodina or Motherland-National Patriotic Union (Rodina - Narodno-Patriotičeskij Sojuz, Партия "РОДИНА") is one of the four parties that control seats in the Russian legislature. It is a coalition of 30 nationalist and left-wing groups that was established by Dmitry Rogozin, Sergey Glazyev, Sergey Baburin, Viktor Gerashchenko, Georgy Shpak, Valentin Varennikov and others in August 2003. The party's ideology combines nationalist and socialist ideas. Its headquarters are located in Moscow. In the 2003 Duma elections, Rodina won 9.2 percent of the vote and ended up with 37 of the 450 seats in the Duma.
Many analysts speculated that Rogozin and Glazyev established the party on behalf of the Kremlin to siphon votes away from the Communist Party. Analysts contend that most Rodina supporters had become disillusioned with the Communist Party after it accepted bribes from leading Russian oligarchs.
Following allegations brought by the Communist Party and ousted reform-oriented liberal parties such as the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko that President Vladimir Putin's United Russia coalition had manipulated elections to ensure a favorable outcome, Rodina declined to field its own candidate in the 14 March 2004 presidential elections. This created a schism within Rodina: Glazyev insisted on running for President under the banner of an officially separate Rodina party, but Rogozin was able to consolidate his support and defeat Glazyev.
In the aftermath of the 2003 elections, the party mostly supported the policies of President Vladimir Putin. However, in February 2005 four Rodina deputies, including Dmitry Rogozin, went on a public hunger strike and locked themselves in their offices at the State Duma to protest the social benefit reforms being pushed through by Putin's Government. The bloc has since increasingly adopted the slogan "Za Putina, Protiv Pravitel'stva" (For Putin, Against the Government), and stated that its immediate goal is to win a parliamentary majority in the 2007 State Duma elections.
In July 2005 the party's co-leader Sergey Baburin left the bloc, taking 9 Duma deputies with him and forming an alternative group in the State Duma, which also calls itself 'Motherland'. The split led to a reunification of Dmitry Rogozin's and Sergey Glazyev's supporters.
Dmitry Rogozin has in recent months accused the Kremlin of waging a dirty war against his bloc, which he claims is feared by the United Russia party because of its potential electoral support. Rogozin has also announced intentions to take legal action against the State Duma for allowing Baburin to register his bloc in the Duma as 'Motherland', creating a potential for confusion within the electorate.
On November 6, 2005, Rodina was barred from taking part in the December elections to the Moscow Duma following a complaint filed by the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia that Rodina's advertising campaign incited racial hatred. The advertisement in question showed dark-skinned Caucasian immigrants tossing watermelon rinds to the ground and ended with the slogan, "let's clear our city of trash". It garnered much controversy and opinion polls predicted that Rodina would come second with close to 25% in the December vote. Rogozin appealed the decision, but the ban was upheld on December 1, 2005.
Rodina's difficulties continued into 2006, when it failed to obtain permission to contest local elections in a number of regions. It did, however, come third in the regional elections in Altay Republic.
Dmitri Rogozin unexpectedly stepped down as party leader in March 2006, and was replaced by the less known Aleksander Babakov a businessman with Russian, Swedish and Israeli citizenship. Many suspected this was a tactical decision on Rodina's part to ease pressure from the Kremlin, although a small number of party members in Moscow had been vocal in their criticism of Rogozin's more outlandish nationalist rhetoric.
Rodina merged with the Russian Party of Life and the Russian Pensioners' Party into a new party, Fair Russia, on 28 October 2006.
[edit] Party name
"Rodina" (Russian родина) means motherland. When capitalized, the term refers to the whole country, particularly in political speech.
