The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia will use its abbreviation — LDPR — as its official name in order not to be mixed up with the nonparliamentary opposition, flamboyant party boss Vladimir Zhirinovsky said Thursday.
"Now everybody is calling themselves liberal democrats, including Bolotnaya [Ploshchad rally participants] and Parnas," Zhirinovsky said, RIA-Novosti reported.
"LDPR — everyone knows it's us," Zhirinovsky told reporters outside the party's national congress in Moscow.
Although LDPR is known as Russia's oldest Liberal Democratic Party, in recent years it has been associated more with nationalist slogans, and in the State Duma its faction has sided with the pro-Kremlin United Russia party on most bills.
(MT)
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