Kasyanov Criticizes Putin Policies as False

The Moscow Times ^ | Tuesday, August 23, 2005 | Tom Miles

[lizol]

Kasyanov Criticizes Putin Policies as False

By Tom Miles Reuters

Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov has thrown down the gauntlet to President Vladimir Putin with a manifesto for Russia in which he trashes the Kremlin's policies.

Kasyanov, who has hinted he may run for president in 2008, wrote in the preface to a British think tank publication that key Putin policies were false, cynical and irresponsible.

"Almost all the essential characteristics of a modern democratic state have in fact disappeared in Russia within a short period of time," Kasyanov wrote.

"The government and parliament can no longer function without daily instructions, and the judiciary is increasingly servile," he said in the Foreign Policy Center's "Blueprint for Russia," online at http://fpc.org.uk/fsblob/553.pdf.

"I believe that our main goal is to do our best to unite all the democratic forces in Russia to return the country to the democratic course," Kasyanov wrote, adding that until recently Russia had done much to become a modern democratic state.

"The current leadership's policy swings -- however dramatic they are -- should not conceal this objective fact and nor should we allow them to."

Kremlin watchers expect Putin to try and ensure the election of a hand-picked heir after the Constitution forces him to leave office at the end of his second term in 2008, and they are on the alert for any potential rival.

Kasyanov, who was prime minister for about four years until Putin sacked him in 2004, challenged authorities last month by accusing them of mounting a smear campaign against him, after prosecutors announced they were probing his acquisition of a villa from the state during his time in office.

Kasyanov's words then appeared to set him on a collision course with the Kremlin, although analysts cautioned at the time that it was too early to say whether he intended to put himself up as a rallying figure for a rejuvenated opposition to Putin.

In the policy pamphlet, Kasyanov called for a reversal of the vast majority of recent political changes. He warned that the alternative was rapid economic deterioration, the undermining of civil society and "nonconstitutional developments."

He said recent changes to the electoral law should be canceled, judicial reform made a priority, inflation brought back under control and property rights strengthened. The media should also be liberalized, he wrote.

"At least one central TV channel should be -- as a matter of policy -- transferred into private hands to give Russian citizens an alternative view to what is considered necessary by [the] Kremlin.

"In foreign policy, Russia should admit its recent failures [are] obvious to anyone and restore normal relationships with its main international partners -- the EU and U.S. -- and neighboring countries."