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Right Cause party must be disbanded - Prokhorov

“The party must be abolished, because the blow on its reputation was very heavy,” the businessman said

MOSCOW, January 19 (Itar-Tass) —— Russia’s multi-millionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who will run in the presidential election as a self-nominated candidate, believes that the Right Cause party’s reputation is damaged beyond repair and must be disbanded.

“I believe that it should disband itself not because it has no money, but because of the deceit that it resorted to when it participated in the parliamentary elections,” Prokhorov said, adding that the reputation of that party could not be restored and a new liberal political organization should be established from scratch.”

“The party must be abolished, because the blow on its reputation was very heavy,” the businessman said on the Silver Rain radio station. In particular, he recalled the falsified pre-election congress during the Duma election campaign, when he was ousted from the position of its leader.

The Right Cause party was created at the end of 2008 as a result of the merger of the Right Forces Union and two other liberal organizations – Civil Force and Democratic Party. In July 2011 Prokhorov was invited to the post of its leader. He managed to draw significant funds into the party’s treasury. But in September the businessman was ousted from his post, and the former chief of the party’s Executive, leader of the Moscow branch of the party, Andrei Dunayev, became its acting leader.

Today it has been announced that the political council of the Right Cause is to meet in session behind closed doors to decide the question of convening an early party congress for official self-liquidation. Sources in the party’s political council have confirmed this possibility to Itar-Tass.

In the meantime, Dunayev believes that the party’s history is not over yet. On Thursday evening there is to be a general meeting of the city branch of the Right Cause, where its new leader is to be elected. One of the most likely contender is the president of the national association of bookmakers, the League of Stakes, Oleg Zhuravsky.

A news release quotes Dunayev as saying the reshuffles in the leadership of the party’s key branch are evidence that the party “despite all the upheavals of the past several months is continuing its political activity.”

In the December 4, 2011 Duma elections the right-wingers got 0.6 percent of the votes. For obvious reasons the party decided against participating in the presidential election. Moreover it has failed to register a single candidate in the municipal elections, to be held in Moscow simultaneously with the presidential election on March 4.