Mikhail Prokhorov is said to have met prime-minister Vladimir Putin and president Dmitry Medvedev. It is said that they discussed future of the Pravoye Delo (Right Cause) pro-business political party and Prokhorov received permission to lead what might become second party in the parliament after the elections in December.

The Kremlin long ago started to select a leader for the oppositional party. First deputies prime-minister Aleksey Kudrin and Igor Shuvalov, adviser to the president Arkady Dvorkovich were said to be the candidates. Finance minister Kudrin was faced with the hard choice: either the post in the government or the leadership in the party. Shuvalov did not want to take the risk. Dvorkovich was ready to lead the party (in case he was offered to), but refused to become its member. 

A source of the Russian Mafia portal (rumafia.com) said that if Prokhorov was brought in as a leader he was going to promote his highly controversial political proposals. Earlier Prokhorov admitted that he had come up with the idea to move into politics with what he calls right-wing ideas while drafting a new Labour Code in Russian Union of Industrialists and Enterpreneurs.

Prokhorov has for long advocated adopting a new Labour Code. He suggests that the 60-hour long week should be introduced, the proposal already condemned both by the trade unions and the State Duma. The prime-minister himself made a statement assuring the population that the government did not plan to make the working week longer.

Prokhorov has not yet outlined his political programme, but he said he would do it very soon. The gold and nickel tycoon insists the Right Cause will be “the party of common sense”. “[The party] needs more people who are sane and adequate. There are a lot of them [in Russia] - teachers, engineers, businessmen, people with different professions. They want to live here, in Russia, and they want to have normal, decent life,” the oligarch said.

 A few members of the Right Cause has already supported Mr Prokhorov’s candidacy. Co-founder of the party Leonid Goizman did not make any forecast about outcome of the State Duma elections, but he said if Prokhorov led the party it would have large faction in the parliament.

Prokhorov has long been rumoured to be attracted as a heavyweight leader to the party which might become a political platform for Dmitry Medvedev in case he decides to run in the presidential elections in 2012.