Russia’s ex-finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, who addressed demonstrators at Saturday’s vote protest in Moscow, said that he was ready to be a mediator in talks between the Kremlin and opposition activists, Kudrin told the Vedomosti business daily newspaper in an interview published Tuesday.
Kudrin said in the interview that a day prior to Saturday’s authorized popular protest on Moscow's Sakharov Avenue, he met with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in St.Petersburg who said that dialogue with opposition leaders “was possible.”
The former minister said he could be a mediator in the talks between government and opposition, Vedomosti said.
Most of the protesters at the meeting were skeptical about Kudrin since he’s still tightly associated with Putin, whom they severely criticize. Kudrin however told the paper that he had agreed to deliver a speech at the rally since he was concerned about the growing anti-government rhetoric in Russia.
“The proposals made at the meeting are my own of my own initiative, addressed to both sides [opposition and government]…I made up my own mind about participation in the rally and did not consult with anybody,” Kudrin said, adding that he did not have the authority to hold talks on behalf of Putin.
At the protest he outlined his vision for how to bring about what he described as necessary change in Russia's political system. He called for another parliamentary election after protesters claimed the vote on December 4 won by Putin's United Russia party was marred by widespread cheating, however, he said this should be a coherent process.
“The best thing that Kudrin can do now as mediator is to assist in releasing opposition activist Sergei Udaltsov [who was sentenced on Sunday to ten days in jail after having served a previous adminisatrative arrest] until this case goes too far. It is the issue that can unite all of us now,” Olga Romanova, a Russian journalist and a member of the protesters’ organization committee said.
Kudrin, widely respected at home and abroad for his stewardship of Russia's economy for the past decade, resigned earlier this year after Putin accepted the United Russia party nomination to run for president again and announced that he and President Dmitry Medvedev would essentially switch jobs if he were reelected in the next presidential election scheduled for March 4.
Kudrin is widely seen as a longtime ally of Putin with whom he worked at the St. Petersburg City Hall in the early 1990’s.
