Mikhail Prokhorov to Enter Russian Politics?

The New Jersey Nets’ Russian owner wants to lead something called the Right Cause, a political party in his home country. Reuters reports: “A Russian billionaire declared on Monday he sought to lead a party backing a second term for President Dmitry Medvedev, a move that could undermine an unwritten rule that tycoons stay out of politics. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, expected by many to run for president again in elections next year, cracked down on powerful ‘oligarchs’ during his eight years in the Kremlin. Oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky was stripped of his fortune and imprisoned. Others have left the country. Mikhail Prokhorov, one of those who has made his peace with the Kremlin, said on Monday he hoped to lead Right Cause, a party with a mainly middle-class constituency which supports a liberal free market economy. It has no seats in parliament and was formed only two years ago. ‘I have sent my proposal to the leadership of the Right Cause party,’ Prokhorov, owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, told a reporter during a trip to a power station in Kaluga, 150 km (90 miles) south of Moscow. ‘Now the decision is with them,’ said Prokhorov, who was ranked second in a list of the richest Russians by business magazine Finans with a fortune of $22.7 billion.”