Russian Pensioners' Party

The Russian Pensioners' Party (Российская партия пенсионеров, "Rossiyskaya Partiya Pensionerov") is a political party in Russia.

The party was founded as the Party of Pensioners (Общественно-Политиче??кая) in 1997. On November 29, 1997 Sergei Atroshenko was elected as the first chairman. On May 29, 1998 the party was registed with the Ministry of Justice. In the December 1999 State Duma elections the party won 1.95% of the vote.

On December 1, 2001 the party was given its present name. On May 15, 2002 RPP was registered with the Ministry of Justice.

At the last legislative elections, 7 December 2003, the alliance of the Russian Pensioners' Party and the Russian Social Justice Party won 3.1 % of the popular vote and no seats.

On January 31, 2004, in an extraordinary congress of the party, chairman Sergei Atroshenko was dismissed from his post for their poor performance.

On March 27, 2005 Valery Gartung was elected chairman. Gartung was the eleceted state deputy of Chelyabinsk.

According to the party there are at present 600,000 members, and some 60 regional offices.

Between spring 2004 and autumn 2005 RPP has been able to hold candidates in the elections of the parliaments of 11 regions. Their highest result was 20.7% in elections for Magadan's Duma on May 22, 2005.

On October 9, 2005 RPP won elections in Tomsk, receiving 19.8% of the vote, compared to United Russia's 17.85%.

However Seigei Atroshenko did not recognise the congress, asserting that he had been robbed of his post, and he filed a lawsuit agait the party in court. On September 26, 2005 the court declared the registration of Gartung cancelled. Consequently the leadership has been split. This caused the party to be unable to participate in five regional elections at the time. On November 24 the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow upheld the decision. On December 17, 2005 an extraordinary congress was held to elect new members.

The Russian Pensioners' Party merged with the Russian Party of Life and Rodina into a new party, Fair Russia, on 28 October 2006.

In 2007 a rival central council, which does not recognise the merger was established.