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If the frightening extremist Vladimir Zhirinovsky appeared to be the bad news out of Sunday's Russian elections, the good news, and almost as big a surprise, was the ascension of Women of Russia.
Under a party of that name, women emerged as a major political force in Russia for maybe the first time since Catherine the Great. And they are not likely to be pushed down again.
"They couldn't stop us," said Alevtina Fedulova, trying to explain how a party founded less than two months ago, spending no more than $80,000 on its campaign and with so little television exposure could beat out nine mostly better-known and organized parties to enter the circle of power in Russia's new legislature.
Fedulova herself, who like Boris Yeltsin emerged from a longtime career as a Communist apparatchik, is part of the answer.
In private life, she is a proud grandmother who smiles at the thought of the small ones. But in her large office in downtown Moscow, she exudes a brisk, no-nonsense determination to see that women will at last be heard in Russia's affairs, rather than only on traditional women and family issues.
With the new State Duma likely to be nearly deadlocked between reformers and opposition, the 20 or more seats her party is likely to control will sometimes be crucial. And noting her sudden popularity, she casts a cool eye over the attempts by everyone from Zhirinovsky to arch-reformer Yegor Gaidar to court her.
"We are not aligning ourselves with any bloc or movement," she said. "We will seek possibilities of cooperation with all the parties."
Fedulova said her...