Biography

Grigory Alekseyevich Yavlinsky (Russian: Григо́рий Алексе́евич Явли́нский, romanized: Grigóriy Aleksyéyevich Yavlínskiy; born 10 April 1952) is a Russian economist and politician. He has held numerous positions in the Soviet and Russian governments across different levels, including in the State Duma.

Yavlinsky authored the 500 Days Program, a plan for the transition of the Soviet regime to a free-market economy, and is the former leader of the opposition Yabloko party. He has run three times for Russia's presidency. In 1996 he ran against Boris Yeltsin, finishing fourth with 7.3% of the vote. In 2000 Yavlinsky ran against Vladimir Putin, finishing third with 5.8%. In the 2012 presidential election he was prevented from running for president by Russian authorities, despite collecting the necessary 2 million signatures of Russian citizens for his candidacy. Yavlinsky was Yabloko's candidate for Russian President in the 2018 presidential election, when he ran against Putin and got 1.05% of the vote, according to the results. Many of the election results were not recognised by his party due to corroborated allegations of irregularities.

Yavlinsky holds a PhD in economics from the Central Economic Mathematical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences; his doctoral dissertation was entitled "The socio-economic system of Russia and the problem of its modernisation". He is a professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.