Right Cause


Right Cause, officially the All-Russian Political Party “Right Cause”, was an officially registered centre-right Russian political party that existed from 2008 to 2016. It was created from the merger of three parties: Civilian Power, the Democratic Party of Russia, and the Union of Right Forces, and it declared itself liberal.
On 26 March 2016, it was renamed to Party of Growth under the chairmanship of Boris Titov.
After this reorganization and name change by the former chairman of the party Vyacheslav Maratkanov, the public movement "Right Cause" was created.

History

Formation

The Right Cause party emerged on 16 November 2008, as a result of the unification of three right-liberal parties: the Democratic Party of Russia, Civilian Power, and the Union of Right Forces. On 11
February 2009, the party was officially registered by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, becoming the only registered political force over the period from 2006 to 2011. The media explained this situation by the fact that the project was approved by the Kremlin.
On 16 November 2008, at the party's founding congress, 33 people were elected to the first composition of the party's federal political council, including:
Evgeny Chichvarkin was elected chairman of the Moscow branch. He was also made responsible for the branding of the party. The party was co-chaired by representatives of its three founding parties: Titov from Civilian Power, Bovt from the DPR, and Gozman from the Union of Right Forces. The central office was headed by Andrey Dunaev, an employee of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation. Later, they disagreed on the purpose of the party and its relationship with the authorities.
On 1 March 2009, the party took part in municipal elections for the first time. The party did not manage to complete registration for the elections, but local candidates of the party in Tolyatti were able to take part under December, a local public movement. The movement's leader was the deputy of the Samara Regional Duma, and a member of the regional political council of Right Cause. Sergey Andreev took second place in the elections with 26% of the vote, losing only to United Russia with 39.5%, and passing 5 deputies on the movement's party list.

Activities of Mikhail Prokhorov

On 26 June 2011, at an extraordinary party congress, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov was elected its chairman, and new symbols and images for the party were approved. He had received an offer to join on April 25, which he accepted on 16 May. The new head received the right to single-handedly decide key personnel issues, including the rights to approve the lists of candidates for deputies in the elections, to admit new members to the party, and to expel those who had been fined. The minimum goal was a faction in the State Duma following the December 2011 elections, and the maximum goal was to become the second "party of power", and eventually the first. According to The New Times, Prokhorov intended to spend $100 million in personal funds on the party's election campaign, and hoped to receive the same amount from his colleagues in the business community.
In July 2011, Prokhorov invited Yevgeny Roizman, founder of the City Without Drugs Foundation and deputy of the State Duma of the fourth convocation, to the party. Prokhorov suggested that he run in the State Duma elections on the federal party list, so that if successful he would be able to engage in the formation of state anti-drug and anti-alcohol policies and legislation. The decision to admit Roizman to the ranks of party leadership caused dissatisfaction within the party's regional branches due to his conviction in 1981 for theft, fraud and illegal possession of weapons. Prokhorov instructed Rifat Shaykhutdinov, a deputy from the Liberal Democratic Party, to head the party's campaign headquarters. In August 2011, Alexander Lyubimov, a well-known journalist and author of the Vzglyad TV program, also joined the party.
On 3 August 2011, the Izvestia newspaper published an interview with the head of the Moscow Region branch of the party, Boris Nadezhdin, who called for cooperation with nationalists and, in particular, admitted that "officers and young skinheads" were entering the branch en masse. Nadezhdin also put forward the slogan "Podmoskovye is Russian land", after which Prokhorov invited Nadezhdin to leave the party if he shared the views of nationalists. Prokhorov wrote in his blog that "if this is his personal conscious position, then he has no place in the party."
In August 2011, political analyst Alexei Makarkin expressed the opinion that the Right Cause election campaign would be very problematic, since Prokhorov lacked both political and party-building experience. Makarkin noted that dissatisfaction with Prokhorov was growing in the regional branches of the party, which he explained by the fact that "they hoped that a new leader, a billionaire, with big money would come, a golden rain would be shed on them," but then it turned out that "it would be far from for all".

Confrontation and resignation of Prokhorov

On 20 June 2011, during the St. Petersburg regional conference, the head of the regional office was changed. Instead of Sergei Tsybukov, Maxim Dolgopolov was elected; he had previously been detained in Dubai on suspicion of the murder of Sulim Yamadayev, but was later released. Party leader Mikhail Prokhorov decided to expel all 1,334 members of the St. Petersburg regional branch from the party and simultaneously admit 220 Petersburgers to the party. On 5 August 2011, the new members elected Evgeny Mauter, recommended by Prokhorov, as the chairman of the regional branch. Dolgopolov's supporters filed a lawsuit in the Basmanny Court of Moscow.
Even before the party congress, scheduled for September 14–15 at the World Trade Center in Moscow, information appeared in the press about the regional branches' dissatisfaction with Prokhorov's activities as party leader. The former head of the Altai branch Pavel Chesnov told Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 13 September that the congress could raise the issue of changing the party charter and removing Prokhorov, who could be replaced by Georgy Bovt, Andrey Dunaev or Nikita Belykh.
On 14 September, on the first day of the congress, opponents of Prokhorov received the majority of seats on the credentials committee. At an urgently convened briefing that evening, Prokhorov announced the termination of the powers of the executive committee, headed by Andrey Dunaev. Prokhorov also expelled Andrei Bogdanov and the Ryavkin brothers from the party, with the reason "for causing political damage to the party", and accused Radiy Khabirov, congress participant and deputy head of the internal policy department of the Presidential Administration of Russia, of attempting to "raid the party".
On the morning of 15 September, in a broadcast of the Echo of Moscow radio station, Prokhorov called on his supporters to leave the party, and noted that he intends to create a new party. He did not announce his withdrawal from the party at the time of the broadcast, but noted that "he is already signing a statement of other members". Opponents of Prokhorov in turn announced that at least 6568 of 70 regional delegates were present at the congress, and the question of Prokhorov's resignation might be raised.
On the morning of 15 September, Dunaev, whom Prokhorov removed from the post of head of the executive committee the day before, announced at the congress: "Information has come through the media that Prokhorov is creating his own party. I propose to immediately vote for the removal of Prokhorov from the post of party leader". Congress participants supported Dunaev and removed Prokhorov from his post. Dunaev himself was elected acting head of the party. The reason for the displacement of Prokhorov was the conflict with the party's regional branches, as well as the decision to include Yevgeny Roizman in the electoral list. Prokhorov was not present at this congress, but took part in an alternative congress held in parallel at the Russian Academy of Sciences. At that congress, the "actual takeover of the party" and alleged falsifications of the credentials committee were announced, which according to Prokhorov "was planned and carried out by employees of the Presidential Administration, subordinates of Surkov." Prokhorov said that he could no longer be associated with the party, which was "led by puppeteers", and called on his supporters to leave it. He declared Surkov to be the main culprit of the "raider takeover". Alexander Lyubimov and Alla Pugacheva spoke in support of Prokhorov at the meeting.
On 15 September 2011, Prokhorov was dismissed as party chairman by the decision of the party congress chaired by the head of the central office Andrey Dunaev, with chairman of the credentials commission Andrei Bogdanov appointing Dunaev as acting chairman.

Participation in the 2011 elections and further political activities

The program with which the party took part in the 2011 parliamentary election was adopted at the congress on 20 September. The party called for the Russia's immediate filing of an application for membership in the European Union, for "curbing the arbitrariness of officials and security forces", and for the abolition of parliamentary immunity. The party proposed disbanding the Federal Protective Service of the Russian Federation so that "officials feel like residents of their country." According to party leader Andrey Dunaev, "there are too many law enforcement agencies with duplicate functions in the country and, for example, some private agency could protect the top officials of the state". The party advocated for the restoration of universal election of power, including the election of city mayors, governors and heads of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, and proposed a ban on holding elected office more than twice in a lifetime.
According to party leader and main author of the party program, Vladislav Inozemtsev, the party "stands for the most complete freedom of all citizens' initiatives permitted by law, political, economic, social and cultural." Inozemtsev sees the future of Russia "on the path of overcoming ignorance, dogmatism and obscurantism". Inozemtsev sees the first step on this path as "the restoration of the secular nature" of the Russian government. According to Inozemtsev, "the time has come to object to the planting of primitive religiosity in a predominantly atheistic country, which has now become a large-scale business project. Priests have no place in schools, the army, or government agencies. Ships and airplanes should float and fly because they were assembled by skilled workers, not because they were sprinkled with holy water by owners of watches costing tens of thousands of dollars. Religion should become a private matter of citizens."
The party also advocated for a gradual increase in the retirement age and the legalization of short-barreled weapons.
In 2011, in parliamentary elections to the State Duma, the top three on the party's federal list of candidates were Andrey Dunaev, Andrei Bogdanov and tennis player Anna Chakvetadze. Also in the top ten of the list were Vladislav Inozemtsev and Alexander Brod. Boris Nadezhdin, a member of the party's federal political council, refused to be in the top three of the federal list, but headed the party list for the Moscow Regional Duma election. The party took last place in the federal elections on December 4, receiving 392,507 votes and was unable to get a single representative on the Duma.
In 2012, the party supported Vladimir Putin in the presidential elections.
On 23 March 2012, the State Duma adopted amendments to the Federal Law FZ-95 On Political Parties, simplifying the registration of political parties. After that, some former members of Right Cause left it and established their own. Mikhail Prokhorov created and registered Civic Platform, and his supporters joined the party. Members Alexander Ryavkin and Vladislav Inozemtsev, who had left the party after it supported Putin in the presidential elections, revived the Civilian Power party. Andrey Nechayev organized and led his own opposition party, Civic Initiative, and Andrei Bogdanov revived and led the Democratic Party of Russia.
In August 2012, Ivan Okhlobystin was invited to the party to develop a new ideology. On 5 October of that year, due to a resolution of the Holy Synod prohibiting priests from being members of political parties, he left the party, saying that he remained only its spiritual mentor. On 3 November 2012, Andrey Dunaev said that the party had abandoned its previous course and intended to continue to pursue right-wing policy with a "national-patriotic bias".
On 18 December 2012, Dunaev left the post of party chairman, and Vyacheslav Maratkanov, who had been deputy chairman for the past three years, was appointed acting chairman.
On a single day of voting, the party sent two of its party deputies in single-mandate districts to the City Duma of Syzran. In the city of Tolyatti, it nominated three candidates, one of whom was go-go dancer Kristina Kazakova, which led to increased and scandalous interest from the local media. However, this did not help the party overcome the electoral barrier.