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Right Cause leader plans to run for Moscow mayor

He said he had a realistic view on the situation and admitted he was well aware of his chances

MOSCOW, June 6 (Itar-Tass) - The leader of the opposition party Right Cause, Andrei Dunayev, has announced his plans to run for Moscow mayor.

“I consider the forthcoming campaign as a possibility to offer the voters an alternative program of the city’s development,” the party’s press service cited him as saying on Thursday. Key provisions of his program are “the solution to the migrant problems, the development of transport infrastructure and the motorway network, reforms in the city’s housing and utilities sector, and better security for city dwellers.”

However he said he had a realistic view on the situation and admitted he was well aware of his chances.

On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on early termination of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s tour of duty and instructed him to remain as acting mayor of Moscow until the mayoral election, the date of which will be set by the Moscow City Duma (legislature). At a meeting with Putin, Sobyanin noted that a number of big programs “are underway in Moscow and it would not be right to abandon them midway.” “I therefore think I should run in the election,” he said.

The Moscow City Duma will hold an extraordinary meeting to appoint early elections of mayor on Friday, June 7. The election will be probably appointed for September 8, the single voting day in Russia.