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gazeta.ru
March 1, 2004
Former tax police chief named as candidate for PM
Combined report

Following last week’s cardinal reshuffle in the Russian government President Vladimir Putin named European Union envoy and former Tax Police chief Mikhail Fradkov as his surprise candidate for Prime Minister on Monday. The State Duma is expected to approve Putin’s choice on March 5.

A week after Vladimir Putin sacked the Mikhail Kasyanov in what was largely seen as a desperate attempt to boost the activity of Russian voters ahead of the pre-decided presidential elections, the incumbent named his candidate for Prime Minister’s post.

As Putin has promised, his choice became a surprise. Fradkov's name was not mentioned at all in the past five days of feverish speculation on who would be Putin's next premier ­ came shortly after the president met key allies from parliament in the Kremlin.

Fradkov, 53, first joined the government a year after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, becoming deputy foreign trade minister in Russia's first reformist government of Yegor Gaidar.

He became full minister for less than a year in 1997. Two years later, President Boris Yeltsin brought him back to the government as trade minister, but he lost that job when Putin was elected as new Kremlin leader in March 2000.

But the balding and unsmiling Fradkov was still nominated to the influential Security Council in a clear sign that he was not out of favour. His most prominent post came in March 2001 when he was made head of the feared tax police whose job was to put an end to massive tax evasion in Russia.

In a government reshuffle in March last year, the tax police was disbanded and Fradkov sent to Brussels to represent Russia in the European Community with ministerial rank. Little is known about Fradkov's political or economic views and he does not belong to either of the two main rival power blocs in Putin's entourage.

Mikhail Yefimovich Fradkov was born on September 1, 1950 in central Russia. He is a trained engineer who started his career in 1970 as an expert in Russia's trade mission to India and later worked in the Soviet foreign economic relations committee. He speaks English and Spanish. Fradkov is married and has two sons.

Commenting on his choice of Fradkov of Monday Putin said the choice had not been an easy one. "It had to be a highly professional person, organised, having strong work experience in varied branches of state activity," the president said. "I am very glad our opinion coincided: that is Fradkov, Mikhail Efimovich, the representative of Russia to European communities...," Putin said.

Putin also said that he saw Fradkov as an experienced law enforcer due to his background as the head of the Tax Police Service. Fradkov "is familiar with the law enforcement sector because he was a deputy secretary of the Security Council and a tax police chief. Therefore he has thorough experience in fighting corruption," Putin said.

The first comments on the move came from market analysts and they were not the cheerful ones. Many saw the appointment of the former tax police chief to the Prime Minister’s post a clear sign of continuation of the advance on the so called ‘oligarchs’ ­ Russian business tycoons who built their empires in the course of privatization of the early 90’s. Ex-prime minister Kasyanov has personally spoke in defence of the most famous ‘oligarch’ Mikhail Khodorkovsky ­ when Khodorkovsky was imprisoned over alleged fraud and theft of state property Kasyanov said that suspects in economic crimes should not be kept in custody.

"It does not sound good. We are looking at who he (Fradkov) is. We have not got any indications that he is a reformer," Al Breach, chief economist of Brunswick UBS told the Reuters news agency on Monday.

Others said Fradkov's tax police background showed that investigating the business affairs of Russia's entrepreneurial class would remain a priority for Putin following the probe into the YUKOS oil giant.

"The appointment of the former tax policeman shows that tax collection will be a key priority for Putin during his second term," said Ivan Mazalov, fund manager at Prosperity Capital Management. "He should be an acceptable figure for Western investors. At the same time he headed the tax police... which may not be so good for YUKOS and other companies," said Max Shein, chief analyst at BCS financial service firm.

News of the surprise nomination prompted a short bout of selling on the Russian stock exchange, but stocks eventually retained morning gains.

By law, Fradkov's nomination has to be approved by the State Duma (lower house) but given the huge majority held by the pro-Putin United Ruissian party this is a mere formality. Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov confirmed on Monday that the house will consider Fradkov’s candidacy for prime minister at a session on March 5.