The center-left A Just Russia party decided to nominate its leader Sergei Mironov as a candidate for the presidency, the party’s Duma faction leader Nikolay Levichev said on Saturday.
“We will fight for access to the second round [of the presidential elections] and we hope to win in the second round,” Levichev said. The second phase of A Just Russia congress takes place in Moscow on Saturday. The main issue on the agenda is the nomination of the presidential candidate. He also noted that the congress will discuss the outcome of parliamentary elections. The ruling United Russia party won Sunday’s State Duma elections with 49.3 percent of the vote.
This is the second presidential campaign for Mironov, he already took part in the presidential elections in Russia in 2004, stating that he supports the other candidate, the incumbent president, Vladimir Putin. As a result of the elections, Mironov took the last place with 0.75 percent of the vote.
Mironov, who in May lost his job as speaker of the upper house of parliament, has emphasized that the main points of the party’s election program include measures to tackle poverty and corruption in Russia as well as the ongoing struggle against the monopoly of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.