Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is ready for dialogue with the Russian protest movement to ensure that presidential polls are fair, his old ally and ex-finance minister Alexei Kudrin said on Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>\n Kudrin told the Vedomosti<\/em> daily that he met Putin — who has announced plans to swap jobs with President Dmitry Medvedev after the March 4 polls — on the eve of Saturday’s mass rally in Moscow.<\/span><\/p>\n “From my conversation with Putin, I understood that he was not afraid of the March 4 elections. He is ready to take all the measures necessary to make sure these elections are fair,” Kudrin told the business daily.<\/p>\n Kudrin addressed the protestors at the rally to urge political reform, in a dramatic move for the man whose savvy economic policies for the last decade served as one of the pillars of Putin’s domination of Russia.<\/p>\n He said he told Putin that “urgent dialogue was needed” with protesters made up of both apolitical middle class Russians and members of the more radical liberal and nationalist forces.<\/p>\n “This is what I told Vladimir Putin before coming to the rally. On the whole, I understood that this dialogue was possible,” added Kudrin.<\/p>\n Some protestors whistled and jeered the respected economist as a member of the ruling class and he looked uncomfortable addressing the huge crowd.<\/p>\n But analysts said Kudrin’s appearance was of great importance and he could become a mediator between the authorities and protestors.<\/p>\n “The proposals I made at the rally were made on my own personal initiative and addressed to both sides,” Kudrin said. But he cautioned: “I do not have Putin’s authority to conduct negotiations.” — AFP<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is ready for dialogue with the Russian protest movement to ensure that presidential polls are fair, his old ally and ex-finance minister Alexei Kudrin said on Tuesday. Kudrin told the Vedomosti daily that he met Putin — who has announced plans to swap jobs with President Dmitry Medvedev after the March 4 polls — on the eve of Saturday’s mass rally in Moscow. “From my conversation with Putin, I understood that he was not afraid of the March 4 elections<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n