The Union of Rightist Forces, or SPS (Сою́з Пра́вых Сил, СПС/Soyuz Pravykh Sil), was a Russian neoliberal party initially founded as an electoral bloc in 1999 and associated with free market reforms, privatization, and the legacy of the "young reformers" of the 1990s: Anatoly Chubais, Boris Nemtsov, and Yegor Gaidar. Nikita Belykh was the last party's leader (since 2005). The Party was considered by western media organs The Economist and the BBC to be one of the few Russian parties that support western-style capitalism, socio-politically the party was more conservative. Its headquarters are located in Moscow. It was affiliated with the International Democrat Union.
The Union of Rightist Forces was established in 1999, following a merger of several smaller liberal parties, including Democratic Choice of Russia and Democratic Russia. In the 1999 parliamentary elections the Union of Rightist Forces won 8.6% of the vote and 32 seats in the Russian State Duma (lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia).
From 2000 to 2003 the Union of Rightist Forces was led by former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov. Under Nemtsov's leadership SPS strongly opposed what they saw to be the authoritarian policies of President Vladimir Putin and argued that political and media freedoms in Russia had been curtailed.
In the 2000 presidential election, the SPS supported Vladimir Putin's candidacy, though many of the party leaders supported Grigory Yavlinsky.
In the 2003 parliamentary elections the Union of Rightist Forces, according to official results, received 4% of the vote and failed to cross the 5% threshold necessary for parliamentary representation. A number of SPS candidates came second in single-mandate electoral districts the party had previously held, such as Irina Khakamada in St. Petersburg, Vladimir V. Kara-Murza in Moscow, or Boris Nadezhdin in the Moscow region.
Despite allegations of fraud, Boris Nemtsov accepted responsibility for the election defeat and resigned as SPS leader in January 2004. On 28 May 2005 Nikita Belykh was elected as the new leader of the party.
Plans to merge with Yabloko were shelved in late 2006.
The party won 0.96% of votes in the 2007 elections, not breaking the 7% barrier, and thus no seats in the Duma.
In 2008 Nikita Belyh left his chair to Leonid Goizman. On 1 October 2008, Federal political council of the party voted to dissolve the party to merge it with Civilian Power and Democratic Party of Russia and form a new liberal-democratic party called Right Cause.
Famous quotes containing the words union of, union and/or forces:
“If the union of these States, and the liberties of this people, shall be lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two years of age, but a great deal to the thirty millions of people who inhabit these United States, and to their posterity in all coming time.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“We are constantly thinking of the great war ... which saved the Union ... but it was a war that did a great deal more than that. It created in this country what had never existed before—a national consciousness. It was not the salvation of the Union, it was the rebirth of the Union.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff’s hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)