A Primer on Putin’s New Prime Minister
Just like Putin before him, Russia’s new PM Mikhail Fradkov has been plucked from relative political obscurity and, to the complete surprise of the Russian public, the diplomatic corps and Western Russia watchers, is soon to become Russia’s second most powerful politician. Talk about upward mobility. The Moscow Times, Russia’s biggest English-language daily, characterized Fradkov as a “100% compromise figure”; Gennady Zjuganov, head of Communist Party called him a “grey and faceless person” and most Russians are now not only totally complacent regarding the impending presidential election, but are also mightily bewildered by Putin’s pre-election caprice. So, who is Mikhail Fradkov, and why is he Putin’s pick for PM?

Prior to his nomination on 01 March, Fradkov was a Soviet trade representative, headed the now-defunct Federal Tax Police, and most recently served as ambassador to the EU in Brussels. Most Russians were afforded their first exposure to the new PM yesterday during a televised meeting with Putin at the presidential residence outside Moscow. Noticeably uneasy and excessively fidgety, Fradkov recited a scripted, obsequious litany of wildly optimistic promises to rapidly improve the standard of living for the average citizen, nurture administrative efficiency and to double the GNP.

This less-than-charismatic first performance has lead some to conclude that the former taxman’s nomination should be attributed less to the president’s desire to nominate an experienced technocrat as head of government, than to a backroom scheme to find a yes-man through whom Putin can control the new cabinet, in essence, creating in the person of the president an American-style unitary executive.

Perhaps it’s not entirely fair to characterize Putin’s motives with such nefarious overtones. Remember the Putin-Bush lovefest two years ago at the ranch? Remember how Dubya gazed, enraptured, into Vlad’s dewy eyes and saw the soul of a democrat, a reformer, a westernizer?

I suppose the souls of neo-authoritarians don’t shine as brightly as the souls of neo-authoritarians pretending to be democrats, so maybe we can excuse Bush for his obvious miscalculation.

This is not to say, however, that Fradkov’s nomination is simply a presidential powerplay designed to extend executive dominion over the government. Fradkov has a reputation as an corruption-busting, law-and-order bureaucrat, and his nomination would harmonize nicely with Putin’s expressed desire to keep the oligarchs in line.

Fradkov’s ideological trackrecord creates an obvious contrast to the business-friendly policies of former-PM Mikhail Kas’janov, who was so well-connected among the Russian business community that he was dubbed “Misha 2%,” a moniker which derived from the wide-spread belief that Kas’janov received 2% of any business deal made anywhere in the country. Fradkov’s nomination may well be a further admonition to the oligarchs that the president is serious about economic reform, rule of law, and honest balance sheets. Today’s edition of the newspaper Kommersant, www.kommersant.ru (in Russian), reports that the Tax and Collection Ministry has launched an investigation of Sibneft, 92% of which is owned by the oil giant YUKOS, for back taxes in upwards of $1,000,000,000. So perhaps Fradkov, instead of being Putin’s pudgy strawman at the helm of the cabinet, will prove himself to be the president’s economic attack dog.