| Description | Союз Правых Сил
Soyuz Pravikh Sil
The Union of Right Forces (SPS) is a democratic opposition party formed in 1999 by a merger of the remnants of Russia's Choice and the minor Democratic Russia Party. It is a free market liberal party that is a rarity in that it supports a United States-style capitalist economic system. The SPS at its onset was led by four major Yeltsin-era liberals (Anatoly Chubais, Yegor Gaidar, Sergey Kirienko, and Boris Nemtsov) as well as Irina Khakamada, who would run for president in 2004 with the party's unofficial support.
The SPS won 32 seats in the Duma in the 1999 elections, drawing 8.6% of the national vote. Khakamada and Nemtsov took single-member seats for the party and Gaidar was elected on the party list. The party drew 4% in the 2003 elections, although exit polls suggested they may have passed the required 5% hurdle for proportional representation in the Duma. SPS candidates were elected in three single-member seats, but all three would later leave the party for United Russia.
In 2005, the party elected Nikita Belykh as its new leader. Belykh has since drawn the SPS closer to Yabloko in its opposition to President Putin, while maintaining its commitment to neoliberalism. |
