Great Russia submitted registration documents because it now has the required 50,000 members. Its formal leader is Andrei Savelyev, while the real leadership belongs to Dmitry Rogozin, the former head of the Rodina (Motherland) party, which has been banned over its nationalist campaign video.
"We have submitted documents to the Federal Registration Service, and they have the right to deny registration within a month," Savelyev said, adding that otherwise the decision would be positive.
Savelyev said the party now had about 58,000 members and 59 regional branches. "About 80% [of the members] came from the former Rodina party," he said.
Savelyev himself was elected to the State Duma, the lower house, from Rodina. Late last year, part of Rodina merged with two other parties into a new left-wing party called Just Russia, which is widely seen as a Kremlin-sponsored project designed to win over votes from the Communists.
A deputy department head of the Federal Registration Service, Galina Fokina, said Great Russia could be allowed to run for the fifth Duma in December.
"We will consider their documents within 30 days," she said. "If the decision is positive, we will send the documents to the tax authorities and they will then register the party within five days."
