Interfax: Kudrin could establish party of his own – newspaper

Alexei Kudrin file photo

MOSCOW. Nov 25 (Interfax) – The all-Russia civil forum Agenda for Russia, organized by the Committee of Civil Initiatives, could become a basis for establishing a new liberal party, the Izvestia newspaper reported on Monday.

According to the information of the newspaper, the Center of Political Technologies has begun researching the topic of party building and possible leadership of Alexei Kudrin. “We can not talk about results so far, the research has not been completed yet,” Head of the Center of Political Technologies Igor Bunin was quoted as saying.

The research involves a number of Russian experts confirming that Kudrin would like to return to politics as a party leader, the newspaper reported. However, Kudrin will have to compete with Alexei Navalny and Mikhail Prokhorov for protest voters, the daily said.

The Agenda for Russia forum, held in the International Trade Center last weekend and organized by Committee of Civil Initiatives headed by Kudrin, confirms the seriousness of Kudrin’s intentions, the newspaper reported.

“We should retreat from vertical power structure and balance it with the horizontal of public relations. We will not be able to solve the new tasks we have without the civil society,” Kudrin said.

According to Kudrin, the time has come to de-centralize the authorities and to ensure review of their financing because power centralization has led to the fact that the necessity of these or those programs and reforms is determined solely at the federal level and municipalities lack funds.

For the first time Kudrin spoke about establishing a party with his participation in December 2011 following elections to the State Duma, the results of which led to large-scale protest rallies, the newspaper reported.

“Kudrin could head a party. His competitor in this niche is Mikhail Prokhorov, who has approximately same positions and loyalty to the authorities. I do not rule out that Kudrin’s actions have been coordinated with the Kremlin because today two poles have formed in Russia – one is Vladimir Putin and the other one is street movement, whose hero is Alexei Navalny,” former State Duma Deputy, opposition politician Gennady Gudkov was quoted as saying. According to Gudkov, the authorities could attempt to push Kudrin into the position of a leading liberal.

At the same time, Co-Chairman of the RPR-PARNAS party Boris Nemtsov said he did not rule out that Kudrin had coordinated his actions with the Kremlin.

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