Strategies of creating a dominant party – the case of UR
respect to the voter's preferences (Greene 2008: 17). Therefore, the dominant party must give
up its former positions and re-locate itself to appeal to the widest possible area of voters.
United Russia has successfully followed these prescriptions. Very soon after the establishment
of the party, United Russia (called Unity Block in 1999) insisted that it eschewed ideology, at
least no other than the support for the current president, as the leader of the party, Sergei
Shoigu declared: ,,We do not bind ourselves to any narrow ideological direction. We are not
,,centrists", ,,rightists", or ,,leftists". We are a party of consolidation of all healthy forces in
society, free of ideological bias" (Colton and McFault 2003: 57-58). Assumedly, in this
context, "healthy forces" referred to the support for Putin and his government.
It is clear, that the leadership has become the main key in granting party support (Smyth et al.
2007: 124)
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