A string of well-connected men are re-entering Russia’s political fray by directly entering as election candidates. These are household names, the men who made up and binded the country’s oligarchy during the ’90s. The big news today is that Mikhail Kasyanov, prime minister under Putin until 2004 and a man with big ties to the Yeltsin family of political and economic giants, has thrown in his hat for the presidency when Putin’s term expires in 2008.

Mikhail Kasyanov, former Russian Prime Minister who was sacked by President Putin in 2004, said in a radio interview on Wednesday that he planned to run for president in 2008 or earlier, if the elections are held ahead of term ???????? the scenario that the former PM estimated as very probable.

Speaking live at the Echo of Moscow radio station Kasyanov said that he simply could not ???????step into the shadow??????? that he had to develop the political processes that could lead to the ???????positive result that millions of Russian citizens are counting for???????.

???????Three months ago I was hesitating, but now I think that the situation is not changing, the wrapping up of democracy continues, economical and social situation is deteriorating and the authorities do nothing to improve these directions,??????? Mikhail Kasyanov said.

The former prime minister stressed that his opinion does not match the course implemented by the Russian leadership over the past two years. ???????I think that the course implemented today is different from the one implemented during ÄVladimir Putin????????sÅ first presidential term. I think that the democratic liberties are being wrapped up today,??????? Kasyanov said.

In particular, Kasyanov called latest Putin????????s initiatives in social sphere ???????petty gifts??????? and suggested that when the promised increase of salaries in the budget sphere does take place it will only lead to confusion as no one would receive money and people would say that they are being deceived.

Kasyanov also said that the ???????democratic forces??????? in Russia can form a single coalition as early as in the beginning of the next year and added that he personally was optimistic about the perspectives of such coalition.

Kasyanov also estimated the chances of early elections in Russia as very high. ???????It is a very possible variant ??????? why should they wait till 2007 when everything is under control today? Why not end it???????? he said.

Being asked about the possibilities of Mikhail Khodorkovsky becoming Prime Minister if he himself wins presidential elections, Kasyanov answered that he had not thought about it.

Speaking of Khodorkovsky, a man that Kasyanov knows well, he is running for a seat in the Duma elections to be held in December. But remember, he’s in jail for tax evasion in the Yukos scandal, so how could he possibly run? Because apparently he can run and even win as long as his entire case isn’t closed, which means until the appeal process is over. Andy from Siberian Light is looking at what’s going on here heavily, and notes some pretty interesting developments.

Why this sudden reluctance to face his day in court? Because Khodorkovsky has found a loophole in the law that will allow him to stand for election to the State Duma – and the loophole won’t close until his appeal is complete. Unfortunately for Khodorkovsky, though, the election is in December, and the appeal trial is extremely unlikely – under normal circumstances at least – more than a few weeks. So, expect an avalanche of delaying tactics from the Khodorkovsky camp, while the prosecutors in turn attempt to hurry things along.

Both camps, meanwhile, are waging a merry little media war, each trying to convince the world that Khodorkovsky is a martyr that the people will support in droves, or a chancer who has no real chance of halting the grinding wheels of Russian justice.

Protests, both pro- and anti- Khodorkovsky, are continuing to hit the streets hard. Neeka’s Backlog provides an eyewitness report (and another here) and a series of photos of this weekend’s events. She finishes off with this comment, which seems to demonstrate that perhaps Khodorkovsky doesn’t actually have all that much support among the Russian public… but that if protests against him continue, Putin may play right into his hands.

There’s more though, going back to Kasyanov. Remember PORA, the group that helped organize the Orange Revolution in Ukraine? Well, another version of it was started up several months ago in Russia under the name Red PORA. They seek the same goals in their own country as their Ukrainian counterparts. A while back they endorsed Kasyanov for president, and he’s now in the running. With exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky (another man well acquainted with Kasyanov) claiming that he funded Yushchenko’s campaign, this adds another dimension to the origin of Russia’s newfound political opposition.

Whether or not he turns out the be the equivalent of Yushchenko remains to be seen, but his connections to the old oligarchy seriously put him at a disadvantage with the public — no matter what his financing. As Andy notes, Yukos tycook Khodorkovsky isn’t finding all that much favor in his bid for the Duma. Of course, there are years to go before the presidential election, but a decade of oligarchic corruption under the name of democracy has left the country completely disenchanted with liberalization.

Kasyanov and Khodorkovsky are trying to get into the system legitimately because there’s no other way that they’ll be able to influence politics with Putin in power. But given the serious skepticism of the Russian population toward such men, and even the word democracy itself, they may have committed so much damage previously that it may be too late to enter as crusaders for such a cause. Nobody can believe them, and they likely don’t even care.

It’s really ironic, because Putin was the man that Yeltsin and all of the oligarchs agreed to as the man to put in power so that they could retain control of the country, and he turned on them quickly. The likelihood of them taking the country back through political means is unlikely, which makes this more of a last hoorah for the oligarchs rather than a fight that can be won. Putin will make sure they can’t win anyway.