Medvedev Says ‘Backwardness’ Undermines Party
MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia accused the governing party, United Russia, of “backwardness” on Saturday, warning its leaders that they must learn to win elections honestly if it is to survive.
Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev spoke at the opening of the United Russia party congress in St. Petersburg on Saturday.
Mr. Medvedev’s remarks, at the party’s annual congress in St. Petersburg, were his most direct criticism of the party yet since it swept regional elections last month amid accusations of widespread fraud.
Some regional branches of the party “show signs of this backwardness and reduce political activities to bureaucratic intrigues and games,” he said, adding, “Elections, which are intended to express the national will and present competing ideas and programs, are sometimes turned into scenarios in which democratic processes are confused with administrative ones.”
He continued, “It is necessary to get rid of such people, and of bad political habits as well.”
United Russia is led by Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, the former president who handpicked Mr. Medvedev as his successor nearly two years ago and is still widely considered the stronger leader.
Mr. Medvedev’s speeches have taken an increasingly harsh tone toward Putin-era policies, and though the words have been backed up by little in the way of concrete policy, some speculate that the president is challenging his mentor. It is not yet clear whether Mr. Putin will run for the presidency again in 2012.
Mr. Putin, also speaking at the congress, seemed eager to quiet the chatter about any disagreement by endorsing Mr. Medvedev’s recent state of the nation speech, which called for Russia to modernize its economy and break free of its economic dependence on oil and gas.
“I am sure this call reflects the mood of all Russian society,” Mr. Putin said Saturday. “The crisis, with all its severity, has shown how costly it is for a country to reject innovation, have low worker productivity, waste resources and have a slow bureaucracy.”
United Russia’s dominance of Russian politics has grown as the opposition has dwindled away, and many compare its clout to that of the Soviet-era Communist Party.
After United Russia swept regional elections on Oct. 11, there were widespread complaints about ballot-stuffing and accusations of extensive fraud, but Mr. Medvedev had been muted in his comments until Saturday, when he told members of his party that they “need to learn to win in open contests.”
“Democracy exists so that people can exercise their exclusive right to determine their government, to decide how their country is to be ruled, and the party is only an instrument,” Mr. Medvedev said. “A very important instrument, it’s true, an absolutely necessary one, but only a tool, a means to an end.”
