Mikhail Kasyanov

Mikhail Mikhailovich Kasyanov (Russian: Михаил Михайлович Касьянов; born December 8, 1957 in Solnzewo, today Moscow ) is a Russian politician. From May 2000 to February 2004 was Prime Minister of Russia.

Life

Training and career as a government official

Kasyanov graduated in 1983 from the Moscow Institute of Technology for Automotive and Transportation (abbreviated MADI, russ Московский автомобильно - дорожный институт / МАДИ ) and began his career in the late 70s as a technician and later as an engineer at the Gosplan of the USSR. He also received an additional qualification in economics area, so he moved to the state authority for foreign trade in 1990. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and formation of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Russian Federation where he became head of department and specializes mainly in the area of ​​external debt of the Russian state. From 1995 to 1999 he was First Deputy Finance Minister of the Russian Federation.

Minister of Finance

Following the appointment of Sergei Stepashin as prime minister in May 1999 Kasyanov was in the Cabinet formation of Russian Finance Minister and retained the post even after the replacement Stepashin by Vladimir Putin as prime minister.

Advance to the Prime Minister

After the provisional assumption of the presidency by Putin on 31 December 1999 appointed him to the acting Prime Minister. On 17 May 2000, a few days after the swearing in as President Putin, Kasyanov was officially appointed to the Russian Prime Minister.

The policy Kasyanov as head of government was considered a relatively liberal. His relationship to state power deteriorated after the arrest of Platon Lebedev, who was, in 2003, together with the previously imprisoned Mikhail Khodorkovsky also one of the directors of the Yukos oil company as " covered " criticized. In February 2004, a few weeks before the presidential elections, Kasyanov was dismissed along with his Cabinet on adoption Putin. The Office of the Prime Minister subsequently went Mikhail Fradkov.

Activity as opposition politicians

About a year after his release made ​​Kasyanov in the Russian public through several appearances attention to himself, in which he criticized Putin's policies as authoritarian and announced to contest the next presidential election against Vladimir Putin. In April 2006 he took over the chairmanship of a liberal political organization calling itself the People's Democratic Union. In the same year he joined the opposition movement The Other Russia and was for a time acted as their possible presidential candidate. In the spring of 2007, he sat down next to Garry Kasparov at the so-called March of the malcontents in Moscow. On the edge of this demonstration, he escaped arrest only by the use of his bodyguards.

In July 2007, Kasyanov left The Other Russia and founded a new party called People for Democracy and Justice (Russian Народ за демократию и справедливость ).

In December 2007, he was placed as a candidate for the 2008 presidential election. January 15, 2008 announced Kasyanov campaign quarters in Moscow that 2.2 million signatures are present for presidential candidacy, thus far more than necessary.

The Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation announced on 27 January 2008 that 13.38 percent of signatures of support for Kasyanov were incorrect. But the election law only allow a margin of error of 5 percent. So he get no approval for presidential election. The Office of the Attorney General initiated a fraud case against the campaign office Kasyanov. He would forego a lawsuit because the Russian courts were not independent. Kasyanov called the Russian government as totalitarian and called for a boycott of the presidential elections.

Kasyanov was, as a representative of the Russian people he chaired the Democratic Confederation ( RNDS ), co-founder and Chairman of the now defunct party of People's Freedom. This party served as a reservoir four different oppositional movements (including the Solidarity ) and planned in the Duma elections in 2011 to participate, why it did not come.

Familial

Kasyanov is married and has two daughters.