Deripaska proposed to allow businessmen to run for office

For the socio-economic development of Russia, it is necessary to remove the “overt and covert” bans on Russian entrepreneurs from holding public office, to allow them to be elected to government bodies. The founder writes UC Rusal Oleg Deripaska in his column for RBC.

In his opinion, the transition to a real open market economy, freed from “all the chimeras of harmful state capitalism”, is possible only if free and private entrepreneurs are equalized with other social groups, otherwise they will remain “weak people along with the retired intelligentsia.”

For this, the billionaire noted, it is necessary first of all to abolish Art. 159 (“Fraud”), art. 160 (“Assignment or embezzlement”) and a number of other articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, according to which they “break the fate of entrepreneurs, keeping them in prison for years.”

“And, probably, we need to go further – remove the overt and covert bans on their holding state and municipal positions, give them the right to be elected to municipal bodies and authorities of the subjects, to the Federation Council and the State Duma,” Deripaska said.

According to the billionaire, entrepreneurs bring progress and development to all sectors of the economy, and it depends on them how quickly positive changes will occur in Russia.

Earlier in October, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Moscow Exchange Sergey Shvetsov offered allow officials to enter the stock market.