Mikhail Fradkov - 03.01.2004

Putin Appoints New Prime Minister

Coverage from:

JTA

AP

ITAR-TASS

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Russian Jew named prime minister brings out Jewish pride — and anxiety

By Lev Krichevsky

MOSCOW, March 2 (JTA) — The Jewish man named Russia's new prime minister is little known to the country's Jewish community. 

But Jewish leaders welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin's selection this week of Mikhail Fradkov, currently Russia's envoy to the European Union in Brussels. 

Jewish leaders said Fradkov, who was expected to be approved by the pro-Putin majority in the Russian Parliament on Friday, has had no interaction with the organized Jewish community. 

If approved, Fradkov would be the first identified Jew to serve as Russia's prime minister. His father is known to be Jewish, and while the background of his mother is unclear, he was profiled in a biographical volume of the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia that was published in 1997. 

Berel Lazar, one of Russia's two chief rabbis, told JTA he has met with Fradkov in the past. 

"He is very knowledgeable about economics. He hopefully will direct his Cabinet toward resolving Russia's most serious problems, such as the problem of poverty," Lazar said. 

Russian experts, whom the choice of Fradkov, 53, has taken by surprise, describe him as a civil servant who is likely to become a bureaucratic prime minister devoted to Putin. 

Whether he will serve in his post for very long is unclear. 

Russian voters go the polls March 14 in an election that is believed to be a rubber stamp for Putin, and a new Cabinet has to be approved after the election. 

But most experts believe he will remain in office for at least a year. 
Fradkov has been a foreign trade official since 1972, when at the age of 21 he got a job as an economic adviser with the Russian Embassy in New Delhi. 

He first joined the Russian government in 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when he was deputy foreign trade minister in the reformist government headed by Yegor Gaidar. He served as trade minister for less than a year in 1997, and was named foreign trade minister two years later. He lost his job when Putin was elected president in 2000. 

Before this week's appointment, Fradkov high point came in March 2001, when he was made head of the tax police, charged with ending Russia's massive tax evasion. The agency was disbanded during a government reshuffle in 2003, and Fradkov was sent to Brussels to represent Russia in the European Commission. 

For some Russian Jewish leaders, Fradkov's Jewishness is welcome. 

"This nomination sends a clear signal to everyone," said Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Russian Jewish Congress. "It means that Russia's president is an absolute pragmatist, it means that a person's nationality does not mean anything to him, and that he is judging people by their business and personal qualities." 

Satanovsky said that while Russia's next Cabinet's policies may remain an open question, Russian Jews already have received an answer to an important question. 

"This question is: Can a Jew become Russian prime minister? The answer is yes. The next question can only be whether a Jew can be Russia's president. But this nomination basically means that in today's Russia a Jew can be anything. And this is very positive," Satanovsky said. 

But others are expressing mixed feelings about Fradkov's nomination, worrying that it could cause a backlash. 

"Of course, this is an overall positive thing to Jews," said Lyudmila Krasnopolskaya, an English-language instructor at a Moscow college. "Yet given this, I'm not sure this choice will necessarily make all Russians that happy." 

A recent conference on xenophobia and racism in Russia held last week in Moscow reported that more than 60 percent of Russians have xenophobic sentiments, and many are anti-Semitic. 

"There are people in the society who can try to make this an issue," said Lazar, speaking of Fradkov's Jewish background. 

"I know there are people even inside the Kremlin whom this nomination will not make extremely happy," Satanovsky said. 

Two major politicians have come against the nomination. Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov and ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, both members of Parliament, said their parties would vote against Fradkov when the nomination is voted on in the Duma on Friday. 

Zhirinovsky called Fradkov a "gray and faceless person."

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The International Herald Tribune

Putin picks unexpected nominee for a top job

MOSCOW (AP) -- President Vladimir Putin followed one surprise with another on Monday by nominating Mikhail Fradkov, a little-known former trade minister and tax police chief who is Russia's representative to the European Union, to the post of prime minister.

Putin nominated Fradkov, an unexpected choice who had not been among likely candidates mentioned by analysts, during a meeting with leading lawmakers from the dominant pro-Kremlin party, United Russia.

The nomination came six days after Putin surprised the nation by dismissing his longtime cabinet chief, Mikhail Kasyanov, less than a month before Russia's presidential election, which the incumbent is expected to win easily.

"We faced a task that was not simple," Putin said in televised comments from the Kremlin meeting.

The president added that the nominee had to be a "highly professional, orderly person with good experience in various branches of state activity."

"I am very pleased that our opinions coincided," Putin said.

Fradkov, 53, who served as a foreign trade official during the Soviet era and as Russia's trade minister twice in the 1990s, was named as the country's representative to the EU last March. He was appointed to head the tax police in March 2001, but the agency was later disbanded.

Putin's nominee is subject to approval by the Duma, but the legislature's support is not in doubt because United Russia holds more than 300 seats in the 450-member chamber.

The Duma speaker, Boris Gryzlov, said lawmakers would consider the nomination Friday.

It initially appeared that Putin would make his choice for the post known Sunday, but he did not.

Putin had been widely expected to fire Kasyanov after the March 14 presidential election, which he is virtually certain to win. Some analysts said the ouster was timed to increase public interest in the presidential campaign in order to raise turnout for the vote.

At least 50 percent of eligible voters must cast ballots for the election to be valid, and the lack of a realistic challenger has turned the vote into a referendum on Putin's rule. While Putin is by far Russia's most popular politician, a low turnout would be an embarrassment and could throw his mandate into doubt.

Putin said Wednesday that his decision to dismiss the Cabinet before the election was motivated by the desire not to waste time wrangling over a new government after the vote and to expedite administrative reforms that analysts say are crucial to the future growth of the Russian economy.

Among potential nominees, observers had named acting Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin; acting Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, Putin's fellow KGB veteran; the Kremlin chief of staff, Dmitry Medvedev; and his deputies Dmitry Kozak and Igor Shuvalov.

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Putin nominates Mikhail Fradkov for head of government

MOSCOW, March 1 (Itar-Tass) - President Vladimir Putin hopes that parliament will support the candidature of Mikhail Fradkov for prime minister. “I hope that the Duma will back this candidature,” President Putin said in the course of his conference with Cabinet members on Monday. 

Putin described Mikhail Fradkov as a man who has “good experience of fighting corruption.” “In Brussels he showed himself as a good strong administrator and a decent person,” the head of state added. 

Also on Monday, the president sent a letter to the Chairman of the State Duma, or the lower house of the Federal Assembly (parliament) of the Russian Federation, in which, in accordance with Article 83 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, he introduced the candidature of Mikhail Fradkov for the purpose of obtaining the State Duma’s consent to his appointment as Chairman of the government of the Russian Federation, the president’s press secretary Alexei Gromov told reporters. 

The consultations in the Kremlin’s representation office brought together State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, his first deputies Alexander Zhukov, Lyubov Sliska, deputies Georgy Boos, Vyacheslav Volodin and Vladimir Pekhtin, as well as co-chairmen of the United Russia faction in the State Duma Vladimir Katrenko, Valery Bogomolov and Yuri Volkov, and deputy leader of the Kremlin administration Vladislav Surkov. 

President Vladimir Putin declared, “We can now sum up the results of five days of thinking,” about the candidature of prime minister. The president recalled at the opening of the meeting with the parliamentary majority of the State Duma, “We met on Wednesday and we had five days ahead of us to work, to think. Now we can sum up the results of these five days of thinking,” the president said. 

Boris Gryzlov declared that Mikhail Fradkov has “every potentiality for heading the government, which will carry out strategic reforms in the country.” 

The full house debates about the candidature will be preceded by consultations with the State Duma factions that will begin on Tuesday, March 2, Gryzlov said. 

He added that the United Russia party would back this candidature. 

Since the government was dismissed last Tuesday, Viktor Khristenko, a prime minister in the preceding government, has acted as the head of the cabinet. 


Mikhail Fradkov was born on September 1, 1950, in Moscow. He is a graduate of the Moscow Machine-Tool Building Institute and of the Foreign Trade Academy. 

His professional career was started in 1973. He worked at different periods for the USSR State Committee of Foreign Economic Relations and the USSR Ministry of Foreign Trade. 

In 1991 and 1992 he was senior counsellor of the Russian mission at the offices of the United Nations Organisation and other international organisations in Geneva, as well as Russia’s representative at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. 

In December 1992 he was appointed deputy minister of foreign economic relations. 

In October 1993 he became first deputy minister of foreign economic relations. 

On April 15, 1997 he was appointed minister of foreign economic relations and trade by a presidential decree. He held the post until March 23, 1998. 

On May 25, 1999, he was appointed minister of trade in the Stepashin government by a presidential decree. 

On August 19, 1999, he was appointed minister of trade in the Putin government by a presidential decree. 

On May 31, 2000, Fradkov was appointed first deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council by a presidential decree. 

On March 28, 2001, he was appointed director of the Federal Tax Police Service. 

In March 2003, after the liquidation of the Federal Tax Police Service, he was appointed Russia’s ambassador to the European Union with the rank of a federal minister. 

In June 2003 he was appointed special representative of the Russian President on problems of the development of relations with EU. 

Fradkov speaks English and Spanish. He is married and has two children.

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