Russian parliamentary deputy Leonid Slutsky was unanimously elected Friday the head of Russia’s nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR).
“I could never have guessed that I would be elected the chairman of my native party,” Slutsky told party delegates after the vote, Vedomosti newspaper reported.
Slutsky also promised to “modify” the party’s political strategy ahead of local elections scheduled for September, according to Interfax.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who led the LDPR for 32 years, died in April from Covid-19 leaving a leadership vacuum at the top of the party.
Slutsky, 54, was first elected to Russia’s lower house in 2000. Since 2000, Leonid Slutsky has served as a deputy head of the delegation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
