Medvedev announcing his candidacy on Dec. 10. (Vladimir Rodionov/Presidential Press Service)

Deputy Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev looks on during a meeting with doctors in Rome, June 19, 2007. (Associated Press)

He is a 42-year-old law professor with a passion for Led Zeppelin music who has never held elected office.

But if the stars align right — and it is hard to see how they won't — Dmitry Medvedev is very likely to be Russia's next president after the ballots are counted in March of 2008.

Officially nominated on Dec. 17, he has the support of Russia's ruling party United Russia as well as three smaller pro-Kremlin parties — A Just Russia, Agrarian Party of Russia and Civil Force Party. More importantly, he has the backing of the outgoing and still wildly popular President Vladimir Putin, who is likely to become prime minister, once his two terms as president are over.

If he is successful in his bid, Medvedev will be the country's youngest president ever elected, which raises a question.

Who is Dmitry Medvedev?

Born in St. Petersburg, then known as Leningrad, in 1965, Medvedev is the son of two university professors. He was a top student who went on to receive a law degree from St. Petersburg University in 1987 and then completed a PhD in law in 1990.

Shortly after graduating, he married his school sweetheart Svetlana and they have a 12-year-old son, Ilya.

He is a devoted fan of hard rock and cites Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin among his favourites. These bands would have been on the state-issued blacklists during Medvedev's Soviet-era schooldays, but he has said he had taped copies, perhaps from bootleggers. Today, he collects the bands' original vinyls and said in an interview with Russian magazine Itogi that he had amassed all of Deep Purple's recordings.

Medevev taught law at St. Petersburg University before entering government in the early 1990s, where he joined Putin, an ex-intelligence officer who was then a young bureaucrat in the office of St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak.

The professional relationship between the two continued when, in 1999, Putin became president and Medvedev served in several posts in the Putin government, including deputy chief of staff to the president, chief of staff and first deputy prime minister. Since 2000, he has also been a board chairman of the state natural gas monopoly Gazprom.

"He certainly comes across as being very honest, very competent, very educated and cultured," said Gary Wilson, political science professor at the University of Northern British Columbia. "He's young, he's sort of considered a liberal reformer, someone who is supportive of reforms towards a market economy, towards democracy, a democracy in which a leader plays a very strong role."

A Putin loyalist

Putin, right, speaks with Medvedev at a congress of municipalities in Moscow, Oct. 23, 2007. (Mikhail Metzel/Associated Press)

A Putin loyalist, who is also considered pro-Western, Medvedev has recently been responsible for overseeing government-led social initiatives in health care, education and agriculture as well as the efforts to boost Russia's low birthrate. According to laudatory articles about him in the generally pro-Kremlin, pro-Putin Russian press, he has been spearheading measures to support foster families and develop pre-school education.

"What is so dear for us today?" he asked when announcing his candidacy. "Stability, improvement of the quality of life and the hope for durable and steady development. Education, health care, housing construction — we have managed to overcome the stagnation of the 1990s in these most important spheres of our life."

But, he went on, "even more has to be done: We need to sharply decrease poverty, to create a modern health-care system and education, to solve the most complicated housing problems, to achieve new living standards in rural areas."

While the presidential heir-apparent has revealed little about specific plans, he has expressed a commitment to continue with the priorities that Putin has set over the past eight years. That is a course, he said in his candidacy speech "which prevented the collapse of our economy and of the social sphere in our country, the course which prevented civil war, the course which is being conducted by President Putin."

The endorsement

As Putin's constitutionally-limited term draws to a close, the president's choice of Medvedev as his successor is expected to carry great weight with voters.

"I have known Dmitry Medvedev well for over 17 years, and I completely and fully support his candidature," Putin said in a statement on national television when Medvedev's candidacy was announced.

Wilson says that such an endorsement carries "quite a lot of weight.

"It's a pretty strong guarantee that whoever Putin selects will become the next president of Russia."

Recent polls in the country seem to agree. The Russian news agency Novosti reported that a substantial majority of potential voters plan to back Putin's chosen candidate.

Critics of the current president say that by essentially naming a successor, the popular Putin is ensuring that he can continue on as, perhaps, the de facto ruler in the country. Medvedev, in fact, was quick to endorse Putin becoming prime minister, when his presidential term is up, and therefore a continuing presence in Russia's power structure.

Wilson said that while Medvedev is viewed as a competent politician in the country, he is very dependent on Putin.

"I think they'll work closely together to achieve the goals that they set out. I don't want to say he'll be a complete figurehead, but I think that they've worked together for so long and they share a lot of the same values that they just sort of work in tandem," he explained. "This is the safe bet for Putin."

Political pundits have speculated that Putin would accept the role of prime minister and attempt to return to the presidential post in four years, exploiting a constitutional loophole that limits presidents to two consecutive terms.

Wilson said that if Putin accepted Medvedev's offer there could be a power reversal in the Russian government. He said that while the constitution was structured for a strong president and a weaker prime minister, Putin could use his party's large majority in the legislature to override the presidential veto, should there ever be one.

"If Putin decides to become prime minister, I think Medvedev would be a very compliant president," he said. Putin "could be pretty powerful as a leader."