Prokhorov: participation in mayoral elections is against the interests of Muscovites

The leader of the Civic Platform party, Mikhail Prokhorov, refused to participate in the Moscow mayoral elections.

“The Civic Platform party will not take part in the procedure for renewing the license of the current mayor,” Prokhorov said at a press conference at the Interfax central office. “You and I have a year to prepare for the elections to the Moscow parliament, which now does not represent the interests of Muscovites. This year will be held under the slogan “The mayor is yours, the Duma is ours. You took the mayor from us, we will take the Duma from you."

Prokhorov said that he would rely on municipal deputies. “Now we continue to work with them, we are in normal contact. We will assemble a powerful team that should win the elections to the Moscow City Duma in 2014,” Prokhorov added.

According to Prokhorov, political parties need to understand that “participation in these elections goes against the interests of Muscovites.”

On June 4 , Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that he was ready to resign and participate in early elections for the head of the city. Now Sobyanin and his colleagues will work as acting officials until the elections, which will take place on September 8.

President Putin accepted Sobyanin's resignation on June 5. “In general, you are working successfully, so I ask you to continue this work,” Putin told Sobyanin . “Despite internal political events, social order must be ensured in such a large city as Moscow, I hope that you can cope with this.”

A source close to the acting mayor told Interfax that Sobyanin wanted to run in the elections as a self-nominated candidate on Thursday, June 6 . Since 2002, Sobyanin has been a member of United Russia. Secretary of the General Council of United Russia Sergei Neverov has already promised that the party is ready to support Sobyanin in the early elections for the mayor of Moscow.

On June 12, Sobyanin officially announced that he would participate in the elections as a self-nominated candidate.

Interfax