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Left-wing A Just Russia, People's Party set to unite

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Leaders of A Just Russia and the smaller left-wing People's Party have announced plans to unite ahead of the March 11 regional elections in 14 Russian regions.
MOSCOW, February 16 (RIA Novosti) - Leaders of A Just Russia and the smaller left-wing People's Party have announced plans to unite ahead of the March 11 regional elections in 14 Russian regions.

A Just Russia is a populist merger, which has been widely seen as a Kremlin project to poach votes from other left-wing parties, above all its main rival, the Communist Party. The People's Party is a small party, whose leader, Gennady Gudkov, once sought in vain to join the pro-Kremlin ruling United Russia.

"Today, you are witnessing a merger on the basis of A Just Russia," said Sergei Mironov, the leader of the party and the speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament.

He said the merger was designed to quickly unite all left-wing forces into a powerful party in the little time left before the March elections, and added that the new project would continue past the elections as well, without specifying for how long.

A Just Russia emerged in October 2006 after Party of Life, Pensioners and Rodina (Homeland) united in October ahead of the elections. The party describes itself as a new-leftist political force and has about 470,000 members.

The leader of A Just Russia, which has been registered as a participant in all 14 regions, said he hoped for a positive result in the local polls. "We are confident of crossing the [5-7%, depending on the region] barrier [minimum threshold for parliamentary representation] in all the voting regions," he said.

The leader of People's Party, Gennady Gudkov, who is also a member of the lower house of parliament, said his party only managed to register in the Moscow Region elections.

"We have decided to cancel our registration in the Moscow Region and join the election campaign of A Just Russia in this region instead," he said.

Gudkov was elected to the State Duma in 2003 for a second time, but his party failed to cross the 5% threshold and make it into parliament, so he became a member of the United Russia faction instead.

He defines his political views as social-democratic, and has repeatedly expressed his preference for Russia becoming a parliamentary republic.

People's Party was officially registered with the Justice Ministry in 2001. The party says it has about 80,000 members.

Four parties out of 15 are fielding candidates in the 14 regions. They include the pro-Kremlin United Russia, the left-wing Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and A Just Russia.

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