MOSCOW — He is the third richest man in Russia, his face has graced the cover of magazines all over the world, and his purchase of the New Jersey Nets has made him widely known even in New York — a city where he rarely sets foot.
Yet in Russia, Mikhail Prokhorov may be suffering from an identity problem.
In the metropolis where he built his empire and made a surprise announcement this week that he intends to run for president against Vladimir Putin in March, the 6-foot-8 metals magnate is a nobody where it may count the most if he really wants to move into the Kremlin.
“I’m not entirely sure who he is,” said Masha, a 52-year-old attendant at a metro station in central Moscow. “I think I’ve seen his picture, but I couldn’t say I know much about him. I don’t think I could vote for somebody I don’t know anything about.”
It is working-class people like Masha who represent the core of Putin’s support and whom Prokhorov would have to make deep inroads with to have a chance at winning. With Russia’s short election cycle, that is a tall order at best.
But that may be exactly the point. Many political observers remain skeptical about whether Prokhorov actually intends to mount a real challenge to Putin’s rule or if he has just agreed to play a part in a cynical Kremlin plot to keep power in the ex-KGB agent’s hands.
The argument is that by offering the urban middle-class — who made up a large part of recent nationwide protests against alleged vote rigging — a seemingly viable choice, it would contain their growing unrest.
As Prokhorov, 46, seems unlikely to make much impact among the much larger working-class populations stretched across wide swaths of the country where he is lesser known or disliked for his big-city, playboy image, the logic is that he poses little real threat.
Suspicions that Prokhorov’s candidacy has the Kremlin’s blessing were only heightened by the wide coverage it received on state-run television, which rarely gives air time to opponents. Publicly, Prokhorov, worth an estimated $18 billion, insists he is in it to win it, but says he does not plan to run as an “anti-Putin” candidate.
“Society is waking up,” he said when he announced plans to run. “Those authorities who will fail to establish a dialogue with society will have to go.”
But veteran opposition leaders are crying foul, and it remains to be seen whether Prokhorov can be made into a lightning rod for dissent.
“Prokhorov’s job is to gather up protest voters and help Putin get elected,” opposition leader and one-time Prokhorov pal Boris Nemtsov said in a scathing interview with the Russian news agency Interfax.
Calling it a “betrayal” of those who took to the streets, Nemtsov insists everyone sees through the move.
Still, given the paucity of options — Putin has systematically dismantled any real opposition by banning parties outright or jailing those he considered a threat — there are some who wonder whether Prokhorov’s long-shot bid could tap into the seething pool of discontent.
“We don’t have a lot of choices right now. I’d be anxious to consider anyone new. The opposition as it stands is not very compelling,” physicist Maxim Minchko said at the Dec. 10 rally that drew an unprecedented 30,000 in Moscow before Prokhorov threw his hat in the ring.
The tycoon, however, has kept his distance from the protests.
“I’m totally against revolution. All revolutions in Russia have been bloody. I’m for evolution,” he said.
But Prokhorov has also begun laying out proposals for reform that cut to the heart of what has made people so furious at Putin. The first thing Prokhorov says he would do if elected would be to free Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man who has sat rotting in jail since 2003, when he made moves to challenge Putin politically.
Prokhorov also vowed to allow all political parties to participate in elections and said he would revert to the pre-Putin system of letting regional officials be elected locally rather than appointed by the Kremlin.
One major question is what does Prokhorov stand to gain? Dabbling in politics is a very dangerous pastime for the super-rich in Russia — just ask Khodorkovsky or billionaire Boris Berezovsky, who lives in exile after butting heads with Putin.
“Oligarchs should not do this,” Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s ambassador to NATO, ominously noted after Prokhorov’s attempt at running a Kremlin-supported political party imploded earlier this year following a dust-up with Putin’s spin doctor, Vladislav Surkov, Russia’s version of Karl Rove.
Some speculate that Prokhorov may have something else in mind entirely.
“Prokhorov hopes to boost his standing among the social base,” political scientist Leonid Radzihovsky told the Echo of Moscow radio station. “If he then finishes in second, it is a strong argument for him to become prime minister.”
In his earlier dalliance in politics, Prokhorov suggested a similar notion, though whether he has brokered a deal to take a job already promised to Dmitry Medvedev is unclear. Still, Putin has vowed a government shake-up following the March election, and Medvedev has virtually vanished from public eye in recent weeks. Observers privately say Medvedev’s days are numbered.
Others have wondered whether Prokhorov may be making a deal with Putin to protect his business interests. Prokhorov recently encountered difficulty when a gold-mining company he part-owns, Polyus, saw its efforts to secure a spot on London’s prestigious FTSE-100 stock index delayed by a committee that Putin chairs.
Regardless of why Prokhorov ends up on the ballot, it is clear that his entry into the presidential race is one of many signals that a sea change in Russian politics is in the works.
“He has many obvious downsides as a candidate,” said ally Boris Nadezhdin. “Nevertheless, I will vote for him because this is the new face of Russian politics. People want change.”
Lukas I. Alpert is a former New York Post reporter now living in Russia.