Our house Russia

Our House Russia (UHR; Наш Дом - Россия, НДР; Nasch Dom - Rossija, NDR) was a centrist electoral bloc in the Russian parliament ( Duma ) between 1995 and 1999 and a "party of power" led by the Russian government ( Kremlin ).

Content profile

As a party was founded from above, an important characteristic of Our House Russia was its function as a government organization. The central points of the substantive positions were both liberal (overcoming communism) and centralistic (combating separatist tendencies in various sub-republics of the Federation).

History of the party

prehistory

The President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin wanted to establish a two-party system based on the American model in 1995 and advocated the establishment of a right-centrist and a left-centrist electoral bloc. Yeltsin's goal was on the one hand to cut the extreme parties on the political fringes, also to keep the leader of the communist party KPRF Gennady Zyuganov out of power. On the other hand, Yeltsin wanted to create functioning, loyal and non-ideological parties to consolidate his power and to ensure the stability of the country.

founding

Our house Russia was on 12 May 1995 by, incumbent since 1992 and since 1991 non-party (former. CPSU ) 57-year-old Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin founded the technocratic unite -reformorientierten (center-right) government supporters Yeltsin. Chernomyrdin's electoral bloc was supported by several large financial institutions ( Association of Russian Banks , ARB; Ассоциация российских банков, АРБ ) as well as large companies such as the gas production company Gazprom , of which he was director from 1989 to 1992 before becoming prime minister. The party won the interest and sympathy of only a few prominent members of the ruling elite in Russia, but won several provincial governors and directors of state-owned companies. UHR was also known as the Party of Oligarchs ( Boris Berezovsky funded the party), a position previously identified with the Party of Russia's Democratic Election (Демократический Выбор России, ДВР; Democratichesky Wybor Rossii, DWR ).

In addition to our House Russia, which is on the right of the political center, Yeltsin also supported the founding of a party to the left of the political center under the leadership of parliamentary president Ivan Rybkin .

Party of power

Since the State Duma elections in 1995 , the Russian government has supported a new, separate house power. These administrative, top-down “parties of power” (партии власти, ruling party, “presidential electoral association”) are loose ad hoc alliances based on bureaucrats who are loyal to the president.

Russian parliamentary elections 1995

After the founding of the party, two parties showed an interest in cooperation, Russia's election and the Agrarian Party (Аграрная партия России, АПР; Agrarnaja Partija Rossii, APR). Their joint program should promote “freedom, private property and justice” and support projects to reduce the role of the state in the economy, to support small businesses, to privatize agriculture and to cut the military budget. The party officially received only 80 million rubles of election campaign money from the state (at that time around 25,000 marks), but held expensive election campaign parties with musicians such as Glenn Hughes (formerly Deep Purple) and MC Hammer ($ 150,000 fee), the model Claudia Schiffer and the dancer Maja Plisetskaya . Chernomyrdin had the 37 million pensioners paid out 23 days before the election, financed by the emergency sale of state precious metals, the outstanding pensions. The Russian army was canceled the energy debt, whereupon the Russian Defense Minister Grachev instructed his troops to vote for UHR. In the 1995 election, the Kremlin party Our House Russia only achieved a disappointing 10.1 percent (54 seats: 45 list places and 9 direct mandates) despite a massive media campaign by state television and support from regional administrations. The Communist Party became the strongest faction with a third of the vote.

The Rybkin Bloc broke up because of Rybkin's close proximity to Yeltsin and was unsuccessful in the 1995 Duma elections. In 1995, Vladimir Putin , who later became President of Russia, organized the St. Petersburg branch of the Our House Russia party and led the party's election campaign at the Elections to the Duma.

Russian presidential election 1996

Despite the First Chechen War , Chernomyrdin and Our House Russia played a central role in supporting Yeltsin's candidacy for re-election as Russian President in 1996. Chernomyrdin told ITAR-TASS in 1996: “To sum up why Our Home is Russia is for Yeltsin, I can say only one thing - because we are for reforms, for the constitution of Russia, for peace in Chechnya, for a normal life in Russia. " ( "To summarize why the NDR is for Yeltsin, I can only say: because we are for reforms, for the Russian constitution, for peace in Chechnya and a normal life in Russia." )

Russian parliamentary elections 1999 - the end

After Chernomyrdin's surprising dismissal as prime minister in 1998, his renewed candidacy for a second term as prime minister was rejected by the Duma. Our House of Russia then rejected the offer of both parties for cooperation. After Chernomyrdin's loss of office, Our House Russia - its parliamentary power base - also fell apart. In the 1999 election , two pro-government parties competed against each other, Our House Russia (1.1%) and Unity Bear (23%). In the 1999 elections, the party failed to make it into parliament with just 1.1 percent of the vote (5% hurdle). Our house in Russia then dissolved. Influential governors switched to parties that later united to form the next governing party of the nomenklatura United Russia . Members of Our House Russia were only represented with direct seats in parliament.

In the 1990s, the party was popularly christened Nasch Dom Gazprom ( Наш Дом Газпром ), as Yeltsin's election campaigns were financed with the money from Gazprom's gas business, old Soviet comrades were supplied and MPs were “persuaded” to vote. The party was widely regarded as the " nomenclature party " of post-communist functionaries.

literature

Comeback of the communists . In: Der Spiegel . No. 49 , 1995, pp. 152-154 ( Online - Dec. 4, 1995 ).
Our House Russia (NDR) , miscellaneous, Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 16, 1995, No. 289, p. 9.