Tymur Rubin, the former leader of the United Nationalist Democrats who also sat in the lower house from 2003 to 2013 as deputy for Turov, Kamchetka, has announced he will endorse Coalition candidate Katrina Fischer for president. Mr Rubin stood down as leader of the UND last year after a string of disappointing results which left the party without any formal representation. He had previously led the UND to become the country’s third biggest political force, which has now been eclipsed by the Nationalist Party and for all intents and purposes, disbanded. Saying he feared an ‘antidemocratic surge’ if the Nationalists polled well in the election on November 3, Mr Rubin commented that he had been considering backing either Ms Fischer or her Unionist rival, Ivan Tattar, but was persuaded by her “powerful rhetoric” about bringing the country ‘back together’.
Mr Rubin also said that he had been encouraged to stand in the election himself as an independent, but said he believed Ms Fischer represented a ‘better future’ for the country and felt she had ‘a stronger claim’ and campaign, able to reach the final round of the vote. Backing the Coalition, he said he wanted former UND voters to take a ‘fresh look’ at the party under Prime Minister Asta Dahn and Katrina Fischer and hoped it ‘would become a home for independently minded voters’.
