Billionaire Prokhorov Opposes Putin’s Centralization of Power
Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who’s taken the helm of a pro-business party, said he opposed Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s centralization of power and poked fun at a nationwide pro-Putin movement.
“I don’t agree with the model of government for the country,” Prokhorov said in an interview published today in the newspaper Kommersant and confirmed by his press office. “Everything is determined by the center; it’s impossible for the country to progress that way.”
Prokhorov, the 46-year-old owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team and owner of a fortune that Forbes estimates at about $18 billion, was elected chairman of the Pravoye Delo political party on June 25. He said after his election that he would be willing to serve as prime minister.
The businessman entered politics after Putin sought to widen his political base by setting up the All-Russia People’s Front, a national coalition of his supporters that will campaign in December parliamentary elections. The ruling United Russia party, which holds 315 of 450 seats, has seen its popularity slide since the beginning of last year.
“In my view, it’s really funny when in a single day, 38 million farmers join the front,” Prokhorov said, referring to the way the leaders of various interest groups allied their members with the coalition. Prokhorov has set a goal of Pravoye Delo winning 15 percent of the vote nationwide, compared with the 7 percent required to enter parliament.
Putin, Medvedev Support
The Pravoye Delo project appears to have the blessing of both Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, who want it to win support at the expense of other opposition parties, said Mikhail Vinogradov, head of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation.
“Ideologically, the party is closer to Medvedev but both the president and the prime minister agreed to this project,” he said.
Middle-class Russians, who account for 40 percent of voters in Moscow and 15 percent to 20 percent in other major cities, have been ignored by the authorities, the Center for Strategic Studies, which advises the government, said in a March report.
Pravoye Delo, formed through the merger of political parties including the now defunct pro-democracy Union of Right Forces, in November supported Medvedev’s candidacy in 2012 presidential elections.
Putin, 58, a former KGB colonel, has remained at the center of decision-making after handing the presidency in 2008 to Medvedev, a 45-year-old lawyer who has promised to fight corruption and improve the rule of law.
Neither Medvedev nor Putin has ruled out running for president in 2012. Putin, who served as president from 2000 to 2008, can return to the Kremlin without violating the constitutional ban on three consecutive terms.
To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at Hmeyer4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net
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