"I think it is very important to have one candidate, and I am sure that democratic forces will have their own candidate at the presidential elections," said Grigory Yavlinsky, who had previously opposed any unification of the right-wingers.
But the Yabloko leader declined to say whether he would run for president himself. "I promise to give you an answer as soon as the elections are announced," Yavlinsky told journalists, adding that right-wingers must take part in the elections if all candidates are provided with equal rights.
"The previous elections offered totally unequal conditions," he said. "And if these elections give us the change to outline our program and take part in debates, then it will be very important for us to go for it," Yavlinsky concluded.
Since their failure to secure seats in the Duma in the 2003 elections, the liberals, who stood behind the snap economic reforms in the turbulent 1990s, have been in sluggish talks over unification. The Union of Right Forces (SPS) and Yabloko signed a memorandum in May 2006 to continue negotiations on the issue.
Analysts have said unification is the one solution to the current funk Russia's liberal parties are in. New regulations for this year's parliamentary elections have made it less likely that either Yabloko or the SPS will get any seats in the lower house of parliament.
In 2003, Yabloko won only four seats and the SPS three in Russia's 450-seat State Duma, and all from single-mandate districts as both parties won less than the 5% of the vote necessary to get deputies elected from party lists.
