KASYANOV, Mikhail Mikhailovich

Former prime minister of Russia and opposition politician 05/25/2010

Mikhail Kasyanov (Михаил Михайлович Касьянов) was born December 8, 1957 in Solntsevo, near Moscow. He was the prime minister of Russia from May 2000 to February 2004, before being dismissed by then-President Vladimir Putin. He has subsequently become a prominent member of the opposition.

Kasyanov graduated from the Moscow Automobile and Road Institute in 1976 and later completed courses in economics under the state planning department of the Soviet Union. From 1976 to 1978 he served in the Soviet army. From the late 1970s until the collapse of the Soviet Union he held various engineering and economics positions at the State planning department.

He joined the Russian Ministry of Economics in 1992, moving the following year to the Ministry of Finance, where he became deputy minister in 1995. In May 1999 he was named minister of finance, and in 2000 he became first deputy prime minister in parallel.

Kasyanov was named prime minister of the Russian Federation in May 2000. His government reformed many aspects of Russia's taxation, customs and pension systems and reorganized national infrastructure. During his tenure the Russian economy grew by almost one third and inflation was reduced significantly. He and the rest of his cabinet were dismissed in February 2004.

Allegations have been made that Kasyanov ignored bribes and illegal business ventures during his time at the Ministry of Finance. In 2007 Kasyanov was also ordered to pay damages and return a property to the government following an investigation into government houses he put up for sale in 2003. He launched the company MK Analytics in 2005.

In April 2006 Mikhail Kasyanov was elected Chairman of the People’s Democratic Union (PDU), an NGO which established the annual "The Other Russia" conference in July 2006. Kasyanov was also active in protests throughout Russia in 2006 and 2007.

Kasyanov unsuccessfully attempted to run for president in 2008. Although he collected sufficient signatures to register, the electoral commission claimed some were forged and he was excluded from an election which Dmitry Medvedev eventually won easily. Backed by People for Democracy and Justice (PDJ), his candidacy was also supported by a number of prominent people including exiled billionaires Leonid Nevzlin and Boris Berezovsky and chess champion-turned-politician Garry Kasparov.

Kasyanov has testified in defense of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, calling charges against him politically motivated and his alleged theft impossible.

In May 2011, Kasyanov joined with long-term ally Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov and Vladimir Milov to attempt to register a new party with the Ministry of Justice. The Party of People's Freedom wants to reduce presidential terms from six to four years and free Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Kasyanov is married and has two children.

Kasyanov’s Web site

 

 

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