For the first time since Boris Yeltsin started putting ragtag teams of so called economists and reformers together in 1991, the Russian right wing - proponents of free market reforms - must face the Russian population on their own. Their chances of crossing the 5 percent popular vote barrier necessary to gain representation in the State Duma (lower house of parliament) are looking gloomier by the day.

That's no surprise. Almost as soon as the reform period began, boys with stars in their eyes started using their new positions to make obscene amounts of money. Many, like Pyotr Aven, left the government to join a bank and trading company. No ethics or moral codes of conduct existed in a system in which civil servants retained their positions while engaging in private business. Often, the government's own role was no more than a tool for building private capital, and looting.

While Communist apparatchiks took as much or perhaps more advantage of the situation and became beneficiaries of a privatization they effectively controlled, the ire of the nation was directed toward the country's young reformers. A good part of that anger is well-deserved.

There were those on the outside, such as Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, who made it their profession to criticize and do little constructive. But one shudders to think of what might have happened in Russia if Yavlinsky did act. He was the city of Moscow's chief privatization architect, and Russia hardly needs that form of capitalism.

Nonetheless, Yavlinsky focused on party-building and forming a political movement based on an ideology, something the right-wingers have steadfastly failed to achieve.

Any form of ideology for the reformers, if there ever was any other than some spoon-fed ideas by useless Western academics and businessmen such as Jeffrey Sachs, faded away in the merrymaking of privatization. Only a hard core of people who still believed in private property stood their ground, but their positions and actions were equally compromised.

Such reformers lost public sympathy and support not so much because their actions brought pain. Russians can take pain. They lost them because they had no moral grounds to claim for their leadership and elitist positions. They had never taken their case to the public and never received a mandate on a clearly-defined manifesto.

Elitist positions are all they have left. The number of black cars (now imported ones) with flashing blue lights in Moscow's center is staggeringly higher than in Soviet years. (All those reformers rushing to their jobs to devalue rubles or privatize something.)

One does get an impression that the reformers are as hungry as former Communist Party apparatchiks to come back to power for the privileges of Moscow apartments, suburban dachas and black cars with blue lights. And, if that is the case, they deserve a slap in the face and need to lose in these elections.

True, former apparatchiks, local governors or even the Communists might come to rule Russia if the reformers fail. True, power will go into the hands of eternally corrupt Soviet-era politicians. True, Brezhnevite stagnation and corruption will come back. But what alternative do the reformers offer? They have been unable - since their dismissal en masse last year after Russia's infamous August financial crash - even to form comprehensible political parties.

They dance around each other, incapable of sharing the ratings they seem to have. Who will lead that 2 percent of Russia? Divide between a dozen.

The back door to power still exists, however, and the possibility that reformers will try to take the Gorbachev route. He was brought to Moscow by former KGB chief Yury Andropov to reform a rotten system. Many in the reform camp now hope that an election victory by former FSB chief Prime Minister Vladimir Putin might mean a return to power, given Putin's personal rapport with reformers such as former St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak and UES chief Anatoly Chubais. If so, that would be unfortunate, resulting in a continuation of nonideological and unethical governance by default. That would also ensure a further distancing between reformist actions and the population at large. It would also be undemocratic.

It has to be understood that the personal and collective low ratings of reformers are not just a symbol of anger toward reform but also toward politicians' inability to stay upright, carry their work through and deliver promises. The reformers failed on many fronts, but their biggest shortcoming has been in their inability to put together an alternative mass-based political movement.

Recent attempts by Sergei Kiriyenko and his Novaya Sila (New Force) party could be lauded were they not so close to an election. And his electioneering, in an impoverished country, looks like a promotion campaign for a brand of cigarettes.

The situation with other reformers is even more dismal. The reform camp has basically shrunk to former First Deputy Premier Boris Nemtsov, reformer icon Yegor Gaidar, former Finance Minister Boris Fyodorov, the charming Irina Khakamada and Chubais. The only two of political promise are Nemtsov and Khakamada.

While infighting has forced Nemtsov into a defensive position for too long, he is likely to emerge as the main reform leader over the next four years. He is the only one among the reformers with the charisma and instinct to become a mass leader. Khakamada could prove to be a brilliant deputy only if she can rein in some of her idiosyncratic ideas on "neo-feudalism" and show some more practical sense. Gaidar, for his part, seems to have accepted the fact that he doesn't have what it takes to be leader, and thank goodness for that. Meanwhile, Chubais and Fyodorov have been riding two horses for some time. Both have sought security in corporate positions while trying to build political futures. It could end badly on both fronts for both of them.

The chances of a reformist coalition or bloc going into the Duma this December are slim, and it's time its members focus on the larger picture and start working toward greater goals.

The time has now come for a new political movement in Russia. It is important to redefine each aspect of political and administrative conduct. Articulate the code of conduct for a man or woman in public life and office. Define the ethics by which a democratic Russia will be ruled and governed.

It's easy to say, "Elect us and we will do it all!" But there has been no reason for the electorate to believe in the ability of the reformers to do things differently. Indeed, they cannot. Reform can no longer be imposed from the top. Only a program supported by a large majority of the population will work in Russia.

Reformers will need four or five years to work with the people. Listen, understand, work, plead, build, propose and do something out of power, let people see, touch and hear in person rather than flashing them in designer suits through television screens.

If Russia's right-wing politicians are to have a future - and I sincerely hope they do - they must withdraw from this year's Duma elections. They must think and elaborate their ideological positions. They should form and join political parties, rather than alliances and blocs as they do each day in a bid to garner the 5 percent of the vote necessary to get into the Duma.

Their time will come, perhaps in four years, and they need to be prepared for it. It's time they came down from their elevated positions to start some real politics.