Billionaire politician accuses Kremlin of playing doubles

One of Russia's richest men accused the Kremlin yesterday of deliberately replacing delegates at his opposition party conference with "doubles" as part of an effort to sabotage his nascent political career.

Oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov claimed the Kremlin was trying to destroy his leadership of the liberal political party and vowed that he would not step down from the post.

Cynics, however, suggested that the incident is being artificially manufactured from within the Kremlin to make the party seem more independent than it really is.

Forbes magazine says that Prokhorov is the third richest man in Russia, with an estimated wealth of more than £11 billion ($21.2 billion), acquired mainly in metals and mining. He also owns the New Jersey Nets basketball team.

Prokhorov, 46, took over in June as head of Right Cause, a political party with a broadly liberal, pro-business agenda, and at the same time said he was relinquishing control of his business interests.

"Today, there has been an attempt to make a raider's seizure of the Right Cause political party," he said yesterday.

The oligarch named Rady Khabirov, an official in the presidential administration of Dmitry Medvedev, as being behind the attempt to seize control.

He said that 21 "doubles" of official delegates had arrived at the conference with false papers, and the real delegates had not been admitted. The conference started without his presence or permission, he said.

The aspiring politician signed a decree dismissing the entire executive committee of the party and promised that he would not give any ground. There was applause in the room from delegates present.

All the major political parties in Russia are "directed" from inside the Kremlin, and there is a broad consensus that Right Cause was set up not to offer real, robust opposition to the government but instead to be a "controlled opposition" force that would attract businessmen and intelligentsia who had become disenchanted.

Now, rumours are circulating that the dispute is an elaborately contrived piece of theatre intended to prove to voters that Prokhorov is a genuinely independent politician and not a Kremlin stooge.

Prokhorov yesterday denied the allegation, as did other Right Cause delegates.

- Independent