Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia's charismatic former prime minister and a thorn in the side of Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, proposed the creation yesterday of a broad democratic coalition to revive liberal opposition ahead of parliamentary elections in 2007 and a presidential race in 2008.

Mr Kasyanov suggested the base of the coalition should be the dormant Democratic Party of Russia, which was created in 1990 as the first alternative to the Communist party of the Soviet Union and which launched Boris Yeltsin towards the presidency of Russia.