Our Home Is Russia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Our Home is Russia (Наш Дом Россия, Nash Dom Rossiya), abbreviated as NDR, was a Russian political party between 1995 and early 2000.

Our Home is Russia was founded in 1995 by then Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. It was a liberal, centrist political movement, founded for the purpose of rallying more technocratic-reformist (right-wing) government supporters. At the time of its founding, Chernomyrdin had the backing of Russian president Boris Yeltsin along with numerous large financial institutions such as Association of Russian Banks, and major companies such as Gazprom, of which he was formerly the director. The movement attracted the sympathies and interests of many prominent members of the ruling elite of Russia, and NDR was thus nicknamed "the party of power." It was also known as the party of the Oligarchs, the position previously identified with another political party, Russia's Choice. Two other parties were interested in cooperating with NDR after its founding: parts of the Agrarian Party of Russia and Russia's Democratic Choice. Together their platform would promote "freedom, property, and legality," and would favor such policies as reducing the state's role in the economy, support for small businesses, privatization of agriculture, and military cutbacks. However, after Chernomyrdin's candidacy for a second term as Prime Minister was rejected by the Duma, Our Home is Russia declined the other parties' bid for cooperation.

Although it was critical of the war in Chechnya, Viktor Chernomyrdin and NDR played a central role in supporting Yeltsin in his 1996 bid for re-election as President of the Russian Federation. "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," Chernomyrdin told Itar-Tass news agency in 1996.

In the spring of 1998, Yeltsin removed Chernomyrdin as head of government and in 1999 Yeltsin's administration backed a newly formed party, United Russia, instead of Our Home is Russia. As a result, Our Home is Russia, which had 55 seats in the Russian State Duma in 1995-1999, won only 8 seats in the December 1999 election^[1]. It didn't form a separate faction in the next Duma and merged with United Russia instead.