Irina Mutsuovna Hakamada (Russian: Ири́на Муцу́овна Хакама́да, Russian pronunciation: [ɪˈrʲinə mutsˈuɐvnə xəkɐˈmadə], born April 13, 1955) is a Russian politician who ran in the Russian presidential election, 2004. She is a member of The Other Russia coalition.
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Biography
Hakamada's father, Mutsuo Hakamada, was a Japanese communist who escaped from Japan to the Soviet Union in 1938. Her family name is sometimes transliterated Khakamada (in Japanese (Kanji), her family name is 袴田; in katakana, her name is イリーナ・ハカマダ). Her uncle Satomi Hakamada was the Chairman of Japanese Communist Party Central Committee. [1]
She graduated from the Department of Economy of the Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University in Moscow in 1978.
Irina Hakamada was an elected representative in Russian Duma from 1993 to 2003. She is commonly regarded as a democratic politician who is in a moderate opposition to the Russian government. She is known for criticizing the governmental actions during Moscow theater hostage crisis where she was involved as one of the negotiators. Hakamada stated that the hostage takers were not going to use their bombs to kill the people and destroy the building [1]. This opinion was supported by other negotiators including Anna Politkovskaya and by the subsequent events when the Chechens did not use their bombs.
Hakamada was one of the leaders of the Union of Right Forces, when she decided to run in the Russian presidential election, 2004. She was not supported by her own party, because they regarded her as the only opponent of president Putin (all other candidates were not opposed to the President's policies). She received 3.9% of votes [2]. Publicist Yulia Latynina in her article in Novaya Gazeta [3] claimed that she only staged a role of a democratic opponent to provide more legitimacy to the election of Vladimir Putin, a role that Grigory Alexeyevich Yavlinsky refused to play. However Hakamada denied such allegations [4].
After the election, Hakamada founded a political party, Our Choice, which eventually merged with the People's Democratic Union led by Mikhail Kasyanov and her. She published book "Gender in big-time politics" [5] describing her personal experience of work in Kremlin [6].
Claims of receiving and passing threats
On 11 June 2006 Boris Berezovsky said Boris Nemtsov received a word from Hakamada that Putin threatened her and like-minded colleagues in person. According to Berezovsky, Putin uttered that Hakamada and her colleagues "will take in the head immediately, literally, not figuratively" if they "open the mouth" about the Russian apartment bombings.[2]
On 19 October 2006 at the Frontline Club former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko said he had learned from Anna Politkovskaya that Putin asked Hakamada to pass a threat to Politkovskaya.[3] Irina Hakamada denied her involvement in passing any specific threats, and said that she warned Politkovskaya only in general terms more than a year ago, and that Politkovskaya blamed her and Mikhail Kasyanov for becoming Kremlin's puppets.[4] Politkovskaya and Litvinenko were killed in October and November 2006.
References
- ^ Mitrokhin, Vasili, Christopher Andrew (2005). The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World. Basic Books. ISBN 0-476-00311-7.
- ^ Live interview with Berezovsky by Evgenia Albats, Radio Echo of Moscow, 11 June 2006. Transcript in Russian, computer translation.
- ^ Litvinenko's statement at the Frontline Club, 19 October 2006. Google video in Russian and English.
- ^ Live interview with Irina Hakamada by Anna Kachkayeva. "Irina Hakamada on party engineering and Russian economy", Radio Liberty, 4 December 2006. Transcript in Russian, computer translation.
External links
English
- Profile — from mosnews.com
- A challenger for the presidency
Russian
- Official site
- Irina Hakamada about her book
- A chapter from the book
- Another chapter from the book
- Irina Hakamada about hostage crisis, interview by Anna Politkovskaya
- Presidential race
- Criticism by Yulia Latynina
- Reply to the criticism
- Interview - Radio Free Europe
- Interview - Radio Free Europe
- Interview - Radio Free Europe
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