Kasyanov Faces Charges and a Political Future
// The case of the former prime minister
Yesterday, former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, one of the figures in the criminal case of illegal privatization of two state dachas opened on July 1, returned to Moscow from London, where he had been vacationing.
Kasyanov immediately declared that the “slander campaign” to discredit him is part of “a general strategy by the authorities to cleanse the political field completely” and promised to achieve “conditions for a real trial, not a political show trial.” The very fact of his return shows that he will not settle for being a political emigrant. The Prosecutor General’s Office is turning up the pressure on the ex-prime minister. Yesterday investigators came up with evidence that the auctions for the sale-purchase of both dachas were spurious.
Workers in Kasyanov’s company MK Analytica say that he came to the office yesterday looking tan and refreshed. The former prime minister’s colleagues refused to comment on reports that he had been in London, a frequent destination for Russian political emigrants. “Mr. Kasyanov was vacationing in Europe,” Tatyana Razbash, his press secretary, told Kommersant. “I would not emphasize London. I don’t know that.” When asked if there were attempts to detain him at the border, Razbash answered, “He crossed the border without complications.”
That day, information agencies distributed the text of Kasyanov’s statement on the “case of the dachas” (see full text below). The most notable feature of his statement is its sharp tone. The former prime minister had been using more streamlined phraseology such as “slowing of economic growth” and “the country is going in the wrong direction” to criticize the current Russian powers. Now he is speaking like an implacable member of the opposition, mentioning “a slander campaign based on lies and twisted facts,” “citizens’ growing insecurity about their futures” and “cleansing the political field completely.”
Many were expecting statements of this kind from Kasyanov in February, when he decided to return to politics, exactly a year after his dismissal. But the former head of the administration did not burn his bridges then, preferring the role of “constructive opposition.” Nonetheless, even his cautious statements at that time we enough to start commentators talking about him as a potential leader to unite the democratic opposition in the next Duma and presidential elections. Union OF Right Forces representatives said openly that they would like to see Kasyanov at the head of his own campaign petition. It is not surprising that the democrats have had their greatest election successes with recently dismissed prime ministers in their ranks. The ex-prime minister’s statements made an impression on the authorities as well, which could be judged at least by the coverage of his February announcement on federal television stations. Not one of them reported on his criticisms of the leadership, while the air was full of commentators close to the Kremlin telling viewers about his “zero support” in society and his “adherence to American values.” Kasyanov did not take the warning though ad continued his “antisocial activities,” appearing regularly in Russia and abroad with criticism of the president’s and administration’s course. Therefore, he was given a sign on July 10: the prosecutor opened a criminal case on the illegal privatization of Sosnovka-1 and Sosnovka-3, two sate-owned dachas in Troitsa-Lykov.
According to an enquiry sent to the prosecutor’s office by State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein, in 2003 when he was prime minister, Kasyanov issued a decree to transfer those dachas from the balance of the Federal Protection Service to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of State Property with subsequent attachment of them to Federal State Unitary Enterprise VPK Invest, which was under his authority. Then the Property Ministry ordered VPK Invest to sell the dachas at auction, as a result of which they became the property of two firms, one of which, according to Khinshtein’s information, was controlled by Kasyanov and the other by Alfa Group head Mikhail Fridman.
The history of the criminal case is interesting not so much for the facts of it as for its chronology. The case was opened on July 1, but it was officially announced only ten days later, after Kasyanov has left the country. Only July 15, Assistant Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov held a special press conference at which he stated directly that Kasyanov “illegally aided” himself obtain the state-owned dacha Sosnovka-1 while in office for the “symbolic sum of 11.5 million rubles,” thereby “causing state interests especially large losses.”
This gave observers cause to suggest that the case was a hint to the former prime minister that his return to the country was undesirable. Such signals had been sent to other influential opponents of the current authorities such as Boris Berezovsky, Leonid Nevzlin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. While the first two of them took the hint and stayed away, the former head of YUKOS preferred to return, for which he paid with a nine-year prison sentence.
Kasyanov’s return yesterday can be seen as a demonstration of his preparedness to defend his good name to the end, as did Khodorkovsky. Kasyanov still has a other choices, however. He could, for instance, choose the path taken by Gusinsky or that of Shakhnovsky. Media Most head Vladimir Gusinsky was also involved in a criminal case, and left Russia after spending three days in Butyrskaya Prison. YUKOS co-owner Vasily Shakhnovsky was accused of tax evasion and paid the sum the state demanded and was released from serving his sentence due to “a change in the situation.”
Kasyanov cannot expect the dachas case to go away by itself. First, the Russian authorities have clearly been inspired by the outcome of the YUKOS case, which did not lead to any rise in popularity for the opposition or to any serious official ramifications in the West. Second, the prosecutor is applying great energy to its search for evidence against Kasyanov. Kommersant has learned that prosecutor’s investigator yesterday turned up documentary evidence that one of the basic conditions for the auctions for the sale for the dachas, publication of an announcement in the media, was not met. In the documents of a competition commission on the auctions, it was indicated that the announcement had been published in the magazine Zhilye i reformy (Housing and Reforms). Investigators visited the editorial offices of that publication yesterday and seized all the issues for 2003, and were convinced that the announcement had not appeared.
The prosecutor has stated that those magazines will be the basis for a suit to be filed to have the results of the auctions of Sosnovka-1 and Sosnovka-3 annulled. The Russian Fund for Federal Property says that the lack of an announcement is grounds for having the dachas returned to the state. The person who gave the competition commission the false information that the publication of the announcement took place in Housing and Reform may be charged by the prosecutor with embezzlement.
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Mikhail Kasyanov’s Statement on July 25, 2005
I have returned to Moscow, in spite of the threats being made against me. I have no doubt that the carefully executed slander campaign to discredit me, based on lies and twisted facts, is part of a general strategy by the authorities to cleanse the political field completely. The results of this strategy are apparent: growing social alienation and citizens’ insecurity about their futures, slowing economic growth against record export prices and the steady fall of Russia’s international standing. The creation of conditions for a real trial, not a political show trial, with public discussion of differing points of view on the situation in the country and a free choice between them, is a task on which I continue to work.
Mikhail Kasyanov’s Numbers
Mikhail Kasyanov first showed up in sociological ratings in January 2000, when he was first deputy prime minister. According to information from the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion, 32 percent of respondents approved of his activities at that time. That indicator had risen to 50 percent by April, but later fell again. In August 2003, about 45 percent of the population approved of Kasyanov’s activities as prime minister and, at the time of his dismissal in February 2004, 40 percent. According to a survey made by the Public Opinion Foundation, trust in Kasyanov in April 2000 did not rise above 2 percent (respondents named the politicians themselves). In May, he began to make a better showing, reaching 7 percent by the end of the month (fourth-fifth place among politicians). Later, that rating too fell. By August 2003, he again reached no higher than 2 percent.
The share of Russians who looked on Kasyanov “well,” according to the Public Opinion Foundation in May 2000 was 27 percent. By January 2001, that number had risen to 30 percent, and then fell again. At the time of his dismissal from the post of prime minister in February 2004, 25 percent of respondents looked upon him “well.” By March 2005, after a year’s absence from politics, that number had fallen to 13 percent.
In the Public Opinion Foundation’s electoral rating, Kasyanov first showed up on May 31, 2000 with 1 percent. In September 2000, his rating had reached 2 percent and that remains his record high. Thereafter, his rating ranged from 0 to 1 percent. After his dismissal, he disappeared from the rating completely.
A Former Prime Minister Isn’t a Luxury, He’s a Mean to Enter the Duma
Democratic parties that intend to run for the Duma in 2007 ought to be very interested in Mikhail Kasyanov. Practice shows that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, those parties make it into the Duma when a high-ranking official, in office or only recently having left it, is among the first three names on their party list.
In 1993, Russia’s Choice (15.51 percent, 40 seats) and the Yavlinsky – Boldyrev – Lukin bloc (the future Yabloko, 7.86 percent, 20 seats) made it into the Duma from among the democrats. The top three at Russia’s Choice were Egor Gaidar (first deputy prime minister and minister of economics), Vladimir Shumeiko (first deputy prime minister) and Ella Pamfilova (minister of social protection). Yabloko was headed by Grigory Yavlinsky (until October 1990, deputy prime minister of the USSR, until the end of 1991 deputy chairman of the committee for operative management of the people’s economy of the USSR) and Yury Boldyrev (until March 1993 head of the main controlling department of the administration of the president of the Russian Federation). In the next elections in 1995 was the only case when a democratic party was able to enter the Duma without a current or recent high official. Yabloko took 6.89 percent of the votes and received 31 mandates. Russia’s Democratic Choice, which did not have a single cabinet member in its ranks, did not overcome the five-percent barrier.
He Union of Right Forces entered the Duma in 1999 with 8.52 percent of the votes and 24 seats. Its list was topped by Sergey Kirienko (who had been prime minister until August 1998), Boris Nemtsov (deputy prime minister until August 1998) and Irina Khakamada (head of the state committee to support small business until September 1998). Yabloko received mandates (5.93 percent, 16 seats) with Sergey Stepashin (prime minister until August 1999) in its top three.
In 2003, the Union of Right Forces list was headed by Nemtsov, Khakamada and Anatoly Chubais, and Yabloko by Yavlinsky, Lukin and Igor Artemyev. None of them had held responsible positions in the cabinet recently. The Union of Right Forces received 3.97 percent of the vote and Yabloko 4.3 percent. Neither party was represented in the parliament.
Accordingly, the presence of a current or recently dismissed prime minister or deputy prime minister can be suggested as a key to the State Duma for democratic parties.
Ekaterina Zapodinskaya, Nikolay Gulko
All the Article in Russian as of July 26, 2005
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