Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who served as president from 2000 to 2008, said he allowed then-Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov to serve out his term despite calls from liberal ministers to fire him.
Kasyanov was named prime minister in May 2000 and held the post until 2004.
“Many members of the Russian government who were well-respected in liberal circles, for example [ex-head of the Ministry of Economic Development] German Gref and one other ex-minister [Alexei Kudrin], spoke to me and asked me to give Kasyanov the boot,” Putin said during a nationally televised Q&A session on Thursday.
“They said: 'We do not want to work together with this crook! Choose between us and him,'” Putin added.
“But as there were no hard evidence of this, just personal sentiment, I allowed Kasyanov to serve out his term.”
Kasyanov’s government reformed many aspects of Russia's taxation, customs and pension systems and reorganized national infrastructure. During his tenure the Russian economy grew by almost one-third and inflation declined significantly. He and the rest of his cabinet were dismissed in February 2004.
Two years later, in April 2006, Kasyanov was elected chairman of the People’s Democratic Union (PDU), an NGO that founded the annual "The Other Russia" conference in July 2006. Kasyanov was also active in protests throughout Russia in 2006 and 2007.
Kasyanov unsuccessfully attempted to run for president in 2008. Although he collected sufficient signatures to register, the electoral commission claimed some were forged and he was excluded from the election, which Dmitry Medvedev eventually won easily. Backed by People for Democracy and Justice (PDJ), Kasyanov's candidacy was also supported by a number of prominent people including exiled billionaires Leonid Nevzlin and Boris Berezovsky and chess champion-turned-politician Garry Kasparov.
