Nikita Belykh

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Nikita Belykh (Russian: Никита Юрьевич Белых, b June 13, 1975) is a Russian opposition politician and the leader of the Union of Right Forces party.

Nikita Belykh was born on 13 June 1975, graduated from Perm State University. In 1998 he became vice-president of the "Perm Financial-Industrial Group". In 2001 Belykh was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Perm Region, where he became chairman of the committee on economic policy and taxation.

In December 2003 Nikita Belykh was a parliamentary candidate for the Union of Right Forces, which failed to pass the nationwide 5 per cent threshold required for entering the State Duma. In March 2004 he was appointed Deputy Governor of the Perm Region.

On 28 May 2005 Nikita Belykh was elected leader of the Union of Right Forces at the party conference, succeeding Boris Nemtsov. He thereby resigned as Deputy Governor of Perm. As party leader Belykh adopted a line of strict opposition towards Russian President Vladimir Putin and drew the Union of Right Forces closer to Yabloko party.

As a result of the agreement between Nikita Belykh and Grigory Yavlinsky, reached in October 2005, the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko formed a coalition, Yabloko-United Democrats, to contest the Moscow City Duma elections on December 4, 2005. The coalition won 11% of the vote and became one of only 3 parties (along with United Russia and the Communist Party) to enter the new Moscow legislature.