MOSCOW REGION, April 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's People's Party decided Saturday to dissolve itself and merge with Just Russia.
The leaders of Just Russia and the smaller left-wing People's Party, Sergei Mironov, who is also the speaker of the upper house of parliament, and Gennady Gudkov, announced plans to unite in February.
Gudkov said his 80,000-strong party will be transformed into a public organization, and its members will individually join Just Russia, which was established late last year uniting three left-wing parties.
Just Russia is a populist merger, which has been widely seen as a Kremlin project to poach votes from other left-wing parties, above all its main rival, the Communist Party. The People's Party is a small party, whose leader Gudkov once sought in vain to join the pro-Kremlin ruling United Russia.
Although Mironov's party describes itself as a leftist party, it strongly supports President Vladimir Putin.
