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Prokhorov withdraws from Right Cause Party

Prokhorov announced that he had withdrawn from “the puppet party of the Kremlin” and urged his supporters to do the same

MOSCOW, September 16 (Itar-Tass) —— Two congresses of the Right Cause Party were held in Moscow on Thursday. At the congress, recognized by the Ministry of Justice, Mikhail Prokhorov, a multimillionaire, was removed from the post of the Right Cause leader. Now Right Cause is planning its future without Prokhorov. At the other, unofficial congress, Prokhorov urged his supporters to withdraw from Right Cause. He said that his main objective was the resignation of Vladislav Surkov, first deputy head of the presidential administration, who “privatized the political system and is supplying disinformation to the leaders of the country.”

Prokhorov announced that he had withdrawn from “the puppet party of the Kremlin” and urged his supporters to do the same, Kommersant writes. “Now I know from my own experience what sort of thing political monopoly is … we received telephone calls with instructions almost every day… There is a puppeteer in the country who has long privatized the political system, who is supplying disinformation to leaders of the country and who is exerting pressure on the mass media. His name is Vladislav Yurievich Surkov,” Kommersant quotes Prokhorov as saying. Prokhorov said as well that he was going to do his best for achieving the resignation of Surkov, because “as long as such people control political processes, no real politics are possible in the country.”

Prokhorov intends to find out “who masterminded the attack on Right Cause” at his meeting with the country’s leaders, but it will be difficult to do. Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said that Putin knew about the “split” in Right Cause, but a meeting with Prokhorov is not included in his schedule.

Prokhorov is not going to give up politics. He is planning to create a new movement. He promised to tell more about the planned movement within a week. Leonid Gozman, former co-chairman of Right Cause, said in an interview with Kommersant, that just two days before he was sure Prokhorov would not create “tough opposition.” He is not sure of it today.

In the opinion of experts, the electoral project of the Kremlin has ended in failure, Vedomosti writes. Prokhorov became the leader of Right Cause late in June. The Kremlin decided that time to bring back to life the right-wing party, so that it would accumulate the protest-minded electorate before the parliamentary elections and neutralize the non-system opposition, said officials from the Kremlin administrations, whose words are quoted by Vedomosti. The previous leaders of Right Cause quickly turned over their authority to Prokhorov, and he immediately proclaimed his goal – the second place at the elections and the creation of a strong faction in the Duma. Experts believed that the financial resources of Prokhorov, multimillionaire and president of Onexim, together with the support of the Kremlin, could really help the right-wing party overcome the 7 per cent barrier and qualify for the Duma.

Whoever could become the next leader of Right Cause, the party will not be able to enter the Duma. According to Mikhail Vinogradov, a political scientist, the party in its present shape cannot take part in the elections. The Right Cause project has been frozen, he added.