Democratic Party of Russia

History

The Democratic Party of Russia was founded by Nikolai Travkin. It initially featured Stanislav Govorukhin and Sergey Glazyev, was a prominent democratically-oriented party, member of the Democratic Russia coalition, and had deputies in the first State Duma. After the August coup, the party evolved from liberal anticommunism to centrism (1992–1993) to moderate Russian nationalism (1994–1995).

In 1991, the Democratic Party differed from other liberal/democratic organizations with its 'demopatriotic' stance (similar to Aksyuchits' Christian-Democratic Party and Astafyev's Constitutional Democrats). The Democratic Party was opposed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and criticised Latvia's and Estonia's policies towards their Russian-speaking minorities. After the signing of the Belovezhye treaty, the DP organized a number of demonstrations against the treaty.

In 1993 on the parliamentary Elections in Russia, the party was held in the Parliament received 5.52% (2 969 533 votes) after Parliament 14 deputies.

The party's stance on Yegor Gaidar's economic reforms was ambiguous, but developed more critical in the course of time. During the constitutional crisis in Russia (1992–93), the party did not have unanimous position. The party called for balloting both for re-election of the President as well as of the legislative bodies on the referendum in April 1993; however, some of the party's leaders took the pro-Yeltsin side. Similarly, during the October 1993 events in Moscow, Travkin initially supported the so-called zero variant (annulling both Yeltsin's decree nr 1400 and the Supreme Soviet's subsequent decisions). On 4 October, Travkin supported Yeltsin's actions in suppressing the armed rebellion. The party took part in the Russian legislative election, 1993 and won 14 seats. The party split, however, on the issue of support for the Chernomyrdin cabinet. Travkin who took a more conciliatory stand lost the power struggle to Govorukhin and Glazyev, who were determined opponents of the government course, and Travkin consequently left the party and joined the Our Home is Russia movement.

Glazyev was made leader in 1994 but was disbanded before the following year's legislative election. The rump DR split further between Govorukhin and Glazyev supporters. In the Russian legislative election, 1995, the Glazyev wing took part within the Congress of Russian Communities list, whilst Govorukhin formed his own list, called the Stanislav Govorukhin Bloc.

In the 1996 presidential election, the Democratic Party supported Alexander Lebed, though some of its regional leaders supported Yeltsin's campaign. In the 2000 presidential election, the party supported Vladimir Putin.

In 2001 the party was reformed by Mikhail Prusak. In 2005 Mikhail Kasyanov tried to be elected chairman of the party, but lost to Andrei Vladimirovich Bogdanov. In June 2007 the party proposed a referendum on joining the European Union and in December it took part in the legislative election, but it did not win any seats. The DPR of that time was accused of being a virtual party used to draw away votes from the real opposition parties.

17 September 2007, with the support of the European People's Party in the headquarters of the European Union in Brussels hosted the XXI Congress of the Democratic party of Russia, which adopted the decision on accession of Russia to the European Union.

In the Russian legislative election, 2007 the party won 0.13% of votes, not breaking the 7% barrier, and thus no seats in the Duma. As of 1 January 2007, according to the Federal Registration Service, the party had 82,183 members.

According to the results of the regional elections of 2012, 2013, 2014 years, the party failed to win in regional and city parliaments.

In 2014 Andrei Bogdanov head created by the participation of the Communist Party of Social Justice, leader of the Democratic party of Russia was elected his brother Timur Bogdanov.

Electoral history