Former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov will lead Russia's democratic opposition in the country's 2016 parliamentary elections.
The announcement was made in Moscow on December 11 at a joint meeting of Kasyanov's Parnas party and the unregistered Party of Progress headed by Aleksei Navalny.
Kasyanov will head the movement's candidate list in the elections, and the remaining spots on the list will be allocated on the basis of "primaries" to be held nationally in coming months. The party's federal candidate list can include up to six people.
Although the Democratic Coalition will formally run under the Parnas name because it is the only opposition party in Russia that has been formally registered by the Justice Ministry, it included the unregistered Party of Progress, the Libertarian Party, the Party of December 5, and Democratic Choice.
The coalition plans to field candidates in major local elections in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg.
