NOVOSIBIRSK, April 18 (RIA Novosti) - A Siberian branch of the Communist Party said it will sue the leader of another left-wing party, Just Russia, for $390,000 over allegations of using criminal ties in a local Sunday election.
The elections in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, widely considered a rehearsal for the December federal polls, saw Just Russia, which is largely seen as a Kremlin-sponsored project designed to poach votes from the Communists, come third behind the Communists and the winners, the pro-Kremlin United Russia.
"Krasnoyarsk Communists have decided to go further and sue Sergei Mironov to defend the party's reputation," said Vladislav Yurchik, first secretary of the Krasnoyarsk regional Communist Party committee.
Yurchik said he was confident the party would win the suit. "And we will spend the ten million [rubles] that we get in damages from Mironov on the election campaign to beat Just Russia again," he said.
Mironov, also speaker of the upper house of the federal parliament, said he was ready to provide documentary evidence that he had already demonstrated in Krasnoyarsk.
"If the Communists want the facts to be made public they will be," Mironov said.
