Khakamada was born to a Japanese father, Mutsuo Hakamada, a
Japanese communist who defected to the
Soviet Union in 1939. Her mother, Nina Sinelnikova, with Russian,
Lezgian and
Armenian roots, was an English schoolteacher who lost her father to the
Stalinist purges and her mother to suicide following the family's forced relocation to
Khabarovsk. Khakamada's paternal uncle is , a member of the
Japanese Communist Party leadership. The Russia expert and political science professor Shigeki Hakamada is her half-brother. In
kanji, Khakamada's family name is ; in
katakana, her name is イリーナ・ハカマダ. Khakamada graduated from the Department of Economy of the
Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University in Moscow in 1978. She obtained her PhD degree from the
Faculty of Economics of Lomonosov Moscow State University. In 1983, she received the academic title of associate professor in the specialty "political economy". She was a member of the
CPSU from 1984 to 1989.
Duma career Khakamada was an elected
Duma representative from 1993 to 2003. She is 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. Khakamada stated that the hostage takers were not going to use their bombs to kill the people and destroy the building. Khakamada was a member of the coordinating council of the
Union of Right Forces. She opted to abstain from the council's vote on their endorsement in the
2000 presidential election, in which the party ultimately voted to support
Vladimir Putin's
campaign over that of council member
Konstantin Titov.
2004 presidential campaign Khakamada was one of the leaders of the Union of Rightist Forces when she decided to run in the
2004 Russian presidential election. She was not supported by her party, which had decided that they would not nominate a candidate. She announced her candidacy in December 2003. Khakamada kicked off her campaign by delivering a speech which placed the blame for the
Moscow theater hostage crisis at Putin's feet. Khakamada claimed her motivation for running was her desire to see a liberal opposition candidate. She would ultimately be the only liberal opposition candidate to run. Khakamada's campaign slogan was “Irina Khakamada: Our Voice”. While she declared that she found her performance in the election to have been, "satisfactory", she alleged that there had been many irregularities with the vote.
Subsequent political activities (2004– present) After the election Khakamada founded a new political party named
Our Choice. describing her personal experience of work in Kremlin. On 11 June 2006
Boris Berezovsky, a fugitive from the Russian justice system, said
Boris Nemtsov received word from Khakamada that
Putin threatened her and like-minded colleagues in person. According to Berezovsky, Putin had issued threats that Khakamada and her colleagues "will take in the head immediately, literally, not figuratively" if they "open the mouth" about the
Russian apartment bombings. Former
FSB officer
Alexander Litvinenko said he had learned from
Anna Politkovskaya that Putin asked Khakamada to pass a threat to Politkovskaya. Khakamada denied her involvement in passing any specific threats, and said that she warned Politkovskaya only in general terms more than a year earlier, and that Politkovskaya blamed her and
Mikhail Kasyanov for becoming Kremlin's puppets. Politkovskaya and Litvinenko were murdered in October and November 2006. 2008, Khakamada left the party of her own accord, explaining the cessation of her political activities. 2016, she became a member of the Council of the
Political Growth Party. She took part in the elections to the State Duma of the 7th convocation as a candidate from the “
Party of Growth”, in the first part of the regional list of
Moscow. The party won 1.28% of the vote and was unable to sit in parliament. ==Books==