Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov announced on Saturday, Oct 27, that he has joined the Civic Platform party he founded in July and will henceforth engage in politics full time, RIA Novosti reported.

“From this day forward I will engage exclusively in political activity,” Prokhorov said at the party convention in Moscow.

Prokhorov, 47, also said he is a candidate to become the leader of the party, an issue that will be decided by the political committee later.

Prokhorov previously said he would not join the party or serve as its head.

During his speech to the assembled delegates, Prokhorov called for amending the Constitution to end Russia’s division into ethnic “districts and republics,” saying they amount to “ghettos” where corruption thrives.

They are “national ghettos were corrupt local authorities oppress and rob our people, people of all ethnicities,” he said.

Prokhorov said the country’s current administrative divisions were a throwback to “a Stalinist-Leninist system that is no longer effective in the 21st century.”

Redrawing the boundaries would redirect budget resources to the municipalities, he said.

Prokhorov also called for an end to the influx of unskilled migrant workers to Russia, at the same time he acknowledged they are needed to offset a steep decline in Russia’s working age population projected to occur in the next few decades.