Union of Right Forces (SPS)

Our business is right!

Founded: May 26, 2001
Leader: Nikita Belikh
Membership: 35,000 in 81 constituencies
Media: The Right Course

Address: 15 Malaya Andronyevskaya 
                Moscow 109544
Telephone: +7 (095) 232 04 05; Press service: +7 (095) 232 09 07
Website: http://www.sps.ru/

Major Party Figures
Yegor Gaidar
Anatoly Chubais
Sergei Kiriyenko
Leonid Gozman

Party List for 2007 State Duma Elections
Nikita Belykh 
Boris Nemtsov
Marietta Chudakova

Party History

A bloc of progressive forces was formed to improve liberal performance in the elections. Its core consisted of a coalition of three organizations - "The Right Cause," which was an association of the factions of the traditional right wing movement; "The New Force" movement led by former Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko; and "The Voice of Russia", an association headed by Konstantin Titov, the Governor of Samara. The electoral bloc also included most members of former Acting Prime-Minister Yegor Gaidar alliance "Russia’s Democratic Choice – United Democrats."

The list of candidates started with the names of young prospective leaders Sergei Kirienko, Boris Nemtsov and Irina Khakamada.

As a result the bloc acquired 8.52 per cent of votes that gave it the opportunity to establish the SPS faction in the State Duma.

In May 2000, the bloc was transformed into the All-Russian Political Public Organization "The Union of Right Forces."

The Constituent Congress of the Union of Right Forces took place in Moscow on May 20, 2000.

Currently, "The Union of Right Forces" comprises about 84 regional organizations in 84 regions and has more than 13,600 members. Membership in the party may be obtained by joining a regional organization. Membership is available to all citizens of the Russian Federation older than 18 who share the party’s goals and objectives, take part in its activities and abide by its statute. A party member should not join any other political party or political public alliance.

In January 2001 the SPS Coordination Council decided to transform the bloc into a party. The Constituent Party Congress was held on May 26, 2001 in Moscow.

Party Objectives and Programs

Objectives
- to promote the establishment of civil society and a law-based state in Russia and the implementation of the constitutional principles of federalism and local self-government;

- to foster liberal values in public consciousness, to develop a liberal economic reform;

- to take part in society's political life through formulating and expressing citizens' political will;

- to participate in the elections to bodies of state authority and local self-government by nominating candidates and organising their election campaign, to take part in the formation and activities of the said bodies;

- to participate in holding the referendums in keeping with the current legislation of the Russian Federation.

Program
The SPS program, Russian Liberal Manifesto, was adopted at the party's second (reorganisation) congress on December 14, 2001.

The fundamental values of liberalism are as follows: personal freedom and personal responsibility, freedom of the press and associations, the division of the branches of power, decentralisation of power on the basis of the principles of federalism and local self-government, the supremacy of law, society's democratic control over the state, private ownership, economic freedom, and the equality of rights and opportunities for all citizens.

1. To establish property rights as holy and inviolable.

2. To instil new democratic civil consciousness based on the understanding of the state as an important and far from only function of society, as an instrument for resolving problems realised by society.

3. To free information systems from state monopoly, and the press - from state censorship.

4. To carry out a stage-by-stage federative reform on the basis of principles of democratic federalism providing for the gradual equalisation of the rights and duties of the constituent members of the Russian Federation, while keeping their regional and ethno-cultural identity intact. Democratic federalism provides for a clear-cut division of the powers of the Centre, regional authorities and the local self-government with the preservation of a single legal and economic space.

5. To ensure a full-scale liberalisation of the labour market guaranteed by the legislatively codified freedom of the mobility of labour resources, to provide for an effective protection of the hired workers' rights;

6. To pursue a course for the soonest possible establishment in Russia of an effective and competitive market economy capable of generating resources for the creation of new safe jobs and for the introduction of reliable environmentally-safe technologies into the production process.

7. To carry out a nationwide education reform following the logic of long-term global competitiveness of the Russian economy. At the same time, the party advocates a new social contract between different generations of Russians presupposing a high sense of civic responsibility for the development of the human potential, the preservation of cultural values and long-term investments into social and intellectual progress of the nation.

last updated September 1, 2005