Russian Billionaire Says He Will Concentrate on Politics

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/world/europe/prokhorov-will-put-business-aside-for-politics.html

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MOSCOW — Amid heightening pressure on leaders of Moscow street protests, the billionaire Mikhail D. Prokhorov announced on Saturday that he was setting aside his business interests altogether to devote his attention to politics.

Mr. Prokhorov, the owner of the Brooklyn Nets basketball team, ran for president in March, attracting many of the urban voters who had begun to turn away from President Vladimir V. Putin. But after winning 8 percent of the vote, he retreated from the political stage, and has said little as Mr. Putin introduced a battery of repressive new measures aimed at reining in dissent.

At the convention of his party, Civic Platform, Mr. Prokhorov said he had signed an agreement transferring management of his investment group, Onexim, to his partners.

He said he hoped to attract the support of grass-roots activists and form what he characterized as a “third force,” distinct from both the Kremlin and the protest leaders, who have organized themselves into a so-called Coordinating Committee.

“We have a classical love of dividing ourselves into reds and whites,” Mr. Prokhorov said. “And there is no third opinion given. I would like to have a third opinion, because I want a country where both the Kremlin and the Coordinating Committee felt comfortable. So I am, if you wish, the third force,” he said.

Mr. Prokhorov’s publicist, Ellen Pinchuk, said that the decision would not affect “any of his assets, including the Brooklyn Nets,” which will remain under the control of the existing managerial group. She noted that Mr. Prokhorov had made similar declarations twice before, most recently when he began his presidential run.

His announcement comes at a low point for the protest movement, after opposition candidates failed to gain a foothold during regional and municipal elections this month, and as several protest leaders face the possibility of imprisonment. One activist, who fled to Ukraine seeking political asylum, has said he was abducted off a Kiev street, forced to sign a confession, and delivered to Russian prosecutors last week.

On Saturday three of the movement’s most prominent faces — the leftist Sergei Udaltsov, the anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny, and the liberal activist Ilya Yashin — were detained on administrative charges during an unauthorized protest outside the former K.G.B. headquarters.

“I was walking on the sidewalk and was detained without any explanation of the reason,” Mr. Udaltsov wrote via Twitter. About 100 activists gathered outside the police station where the three were being held on Saturday night. The three were released about three hours later, and Mr. Yashin said they would probably face large fines or community service under new, tougher public gathering laws passed after Mr. Putin’s inauguration.

It is unclear what effect, if any, Mr. Prokhorov’s announcement will have on the political scene.

From the stage on Saturday he floated the idea of eliminating Russia’s national republics, devised as homes to specific ethnic minorities. This provoked a sharp commentary from Abbas Galyamov, a top official in the Republic of Bashkortostan.

“I would like to remind you that he who strides too broadly risks tearing his pants,” he told the Interfax news service. “Prokhorov did not invent the nation and federalism, and Prokhorov will not cancel them.”

The most recent elections, this month, revealed little support for opposition candidates, said Aleksei V. Makarkin of the Center for Political Technologies in Moscow. Since entering politics last year, Mr. Prokhorov has behaved with the caution typical of a Russian industrialist, Mr. Makarkin said, avoiding any statements that would alienate Mr. Putin.

“As far as I understand, he does not want to conflict with the authorities,” Mr. Makarkin said. “He ended up in a situation where, on one hand, he does not want to risk anything. A big number of his voters wanted him to take risks, they wanted him to make tougher statements. But it is understood that these voters are not going to take those risks themselves.”

<NYT_AUTHOR_ID> <p>Howard Beck contributed reporting from New York, and Andrew Roth from Moscow.