Navalny not to join party being set up by allies
MOSCOW. Nov 7 (Interfax) - Allies of Russian high-profile opposition activist Alexei Navalny are planning to set up a political party, but Navalny has distanced himself from the project.
The party, to be called the People's Alliance, is scheduled to hold its founding congress at Moscow's Izmailovo hotel complex on December 15, member of the organizing committee, blogger Timur Khorev, said in Twitter on Wednesday.
The committee includes people involved in the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which was established by Navalny,
Earlier, Interfax reported that the committee submitted registration documents to the Justice Ministry late in July.
Grigory Alburov, manager of RosVybory [Russian Elections], one of the foundation's projects, said in his blog that among the organizing committee members were Vladimir Ashurkov, executive director of the foundation, Leonid Volkov, chairman of the Central Voting Committee of the Opposition Coordination Council, political scientist Fyodor Krasheninnikov, and blogger Vladislav Naganov, chief executive of the Constructive Project Foundation.
Volkov and Krasheninnikov are the authors of the book Cloudy Democracy.
"We want to build what would be Russia's first party with genuine internal democracy, a party that would be based on electronic democracy principles and exist on dues from its members. This is not an easy task, but all technological resources for implementation are available," Alburov said.
Navalny himself has, however, refused to get involved in the People's Alliance project.
"I don't believe that party work is the most effective method of work for me at the moment," he told Dozhd television. "A person like me will most likely cause problems to any party and any election list."
"I'm not taking part in this party project, and I don't want to try to force my leadership on anyone," Navalny said.
