Business tycoon Prokhorov speaks for changes in Russian sociopolitical system
MOSCOW. June 27 (Interfax) - Business tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov, elected the leader of the Right Cause party on Saturday, has criticized Russia's current sociopolitical system and proposed a number of changes.
"We are called the Russian Federation, but it is an empire in its essence. Only the presidential branch is working here. This form does not even ensure stability," Prokhorov said at a congress of the Right Cause.
Prokhorov suggested that a single-winner voting system should be reinstated in Russia so that at least 25 talented and bright personalities could make it to parliament.
He also insisted that "the system of presidential envoys to the federal districts has completed its mission and can easily be gotten rid of."
It is also necessary to expand the powers of governors and "make the chiefs of police, courts and possibly even prosecutors elected," he said.
"The mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg should certainly be elected," he said.
"Our whole country is systemically degenerating: Our industry has collapsed, and we are nothing but a supplier of raw materials, although quite a powerful one," he said.
"Education, healthcare and culture are degenerating now. Spending on them should be higher than spending on security, law enforcement and defense," he said.
Prokhorov also called for "putting an end to the civil war, which has lasted for nearly a hundred years."
"We divided the people into those who are with us and enemies in 1917, but now we have to return Russian citizenship to all of them without any preconditions," he said.
Speaking of the upcoming elections to the State Duma, in which Prokhorov believes the Right Cause will perform well, he said: "Who are our voters? I do not think it is right to presume that we are a party of big, medium and small businesses and intelligentsia. We should address the heads of families, and our party could be a party of the young," he said.