Gorbachev Wants Back Into Russian Politics

Former President Teams Up With Billionaire To Form New Party To Challenge Kremlin

(AP)  A Russian billionaire said Tuesday he is teaming up with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to form a new political party that will challenge the country's recent steps away from democracy.

Alexander Lebedev, a former lawmaker who has built a fortune in business and investment, said he and Gorbachev would work together in a political movement tentatively named the Independent Democratic Party.

Kremlin critics say that during his eight years as president, current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reversed Russia's post-Soviet movement toward democracy and enhanced state control over the economy, courts and media.

Gorbachev could not immediately be reached for comment, and it wasn't clear if the 77-year-old planned to seek an active political role more than 17 years after the Soviet Union collapsed around him, costing him his job as its last leader.

It would be an uphill battle: Gorbachev is popular abroad, but is reviled by many Russians who blame him for the Soviet breakup. He won less than 1 percent of the votes in the 1996 presidential election and has not run since.

In a statement on his Web site, Lebedev said the new party was Gorbachev's idea. "The initiative belongs to President Gorbachev. He gave our people freedom, but we have not learned how to use it."

Lebedev said the party would advocate a "return to a normal electoral system," calling for the restoration of gubernatorial elections, a stronger parliament, independent courts and media, and a smaller state role in the economy.

Gorbachev has generally praised Putin for lifting the nation out of the post-Soviet troubles that many Russians blame on the late Boris Yeltsin, a longtime rival of Gorbachev who replaced him in the Kremlin.

But Gorbachev has cautiously criticized the political system put in place by Putin. The United Russia party of the immensely popular Putin dominates parliament and regional governments, while Kremlin critics have been sidelined, sometimes though force.

Earlier this year, Gorbachev suggested that United Russia was in danger of becoming like the all-powerful Soviet-era Communist Party and called for major changes in the electoral system.

Lebedev, a major private shareholder in the Russian airline Aeroflot, joined with Gorbachev in 2006 to buy 49 percent of Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper that has challenged the Kremlin with penetrating investigative reporting. Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent investigative reporter murdered that year, worked for Novaya Gazeta.

In June, Gorbachev and Lebedev urged the creation of a national museum and memorial to honor victims of Soviet-era repression - a move seen as a challenge to the government, which critics say has glossed over the crimes of Josef Stalin to justify its own retreat from democracy.

[cmp271]

Doesn''t Russia today sound exactly like America TODAY. We have so much federal interference it is difficult to believe we are a Democracy and not a Socialist Country.

WAKE UP AMERICA BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE
RECLAIM YOUR RIGHTS BEFORE 9/11

[gaye5]

A Russian billionaire said Tuesday he is teaming up with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to form a new political party that will CHALLANGE the country''s recent steps AWAY from democracy.

This is a man who many years ago said, "Communism has not finished as some in the west would say, all we have done is change our tactics", and now Gorbachev joins a party to challenge the steps away from democracy, yea like, just another tactic to fool the people eh..

[mydiatribe]

Hey This is the new age of ''Obama Insanity''.
Maybe it IS the time to bring back old ''wine stain'' himself. How bad could HE be compared to Vladimir Putin?

[Diamonddavej]

Mikhail Gorbachev is very unpopular in Russia, people blame him for the collapse of the Soviet Union, the loss of military supremacy, environmental pollution, power cuts, dry rot, the curdling of milk, wet toilet seats, bad vodka and too much snow (amongst other things).

There is no way any party associated with him will be successful, you might as well tie an anchor around your neck and jump in the Moskva River!

To put in perspective how mind boggingly unpopular Gorbachev is domestically, some people thick he is as unpopular George W. Bush, but that''s clearly a considerable exaggeration.

(I am serious about how unpopular Gorbachev is).

[closethippy1]

Gorbachev is responsible for the abrupt breakdown of Russia instead of gradually moving away from the communist system like China is doing.
Because of it places like Georgia was allowed to take over regions that wanted nothing to do with it and now look at the mess Georgia made trying to retain those places against the will of the people there.
Gorbachev handed the world to the US and now look at the mess the US has made of it.
I''m sure Russians are sensible enough to reject this well intentioned f.ool who should instead be running a grocery store.

[pensacola98]

The Russians are very bright and adaptive people. Their fear of the USA over the past six years since the unjustified invasion of Iraq plays right into the hands of hardliners there, in Russia, who want to use fear and recover political power from the Russian political machine.

The see-saw reaction of military / foriegn policy behavior between countries around the world need to be moderated and soothed with nurturing and hope. It is right and just to be your brother''s keeper.

[hunterdon6]

Even he knows Russia is headed in the wrong direction.