Rosbalt,
Elena Panova, Rosbalt,
The unexpected designation of
Mikhail Fradkov as head of the Russian government has
now been completed with the expected announcement of his cabinet. Figures close
to Mikhail Kasyanov-Boris Alyoshin, Mikhail Shvydkoi and others-appear to have been considered too 'unprofessional'
to handle the tasks confronting the new government. Its tasks are hardly
easy-to cut the bureaucracy painfully and to raise living standards.
Immediately after the resignation of
former Prime Minister Kasyanov, President Vladimir Putin
announced that the government was no longer to be a shadow in the background
but would become an effective, modern instrument of administration. The new
'cogs' in the administrative machine have now been announced-Aleksandr Zhukov, Dmitry Kozak, Rashid Nurgaliyev, Sergey Lavrov, Yury Trutnev,
Mikhail Zurabov, Aleksandr Sokolov, Andrey Fursenko and Igor Levitin. Who
are these old new people?
Aleksandr
Zhukov, the sole deputy prime minister, is a specialist in the field of
currency, tax and customs law. Fradkov himself
earlier headed the Federal Tax Police Service, and the Tax and Collections
Ministry has again become the Federal Tax Service.
The naming of Dmitry
Kozak, a presidential protйgй,
to head the bureaucracy (apparat) in essence confirms
this as a cabinet with a largely technical mission. Igor Bunin,
the political analyst, believes that Kozak, formerly
first deputy chief of the bureaucracy, will act as the president's man in the
government since that post is normally designated by the prime minister. Thus,
the role of the bureaucracy may grow rather than be reduced, as has been
assumed, especially against the background of a rather colorless
prime minister. It was Kozak, it may be noted, who devised the new cabinet structure.
The appointment of Rashid Nurgaliyev, long the acting minister, as minister of
internal affairs, signals the complete, unconditional victory of the new team
and defeat of the 'family.' Until his actual appointment, analysts had rated Nurgaliyev as trailing the other candidates for the job.
But the experts now see the Nurgaliyev appointment as
a compromise that suits most of the interested parties. The whole 'power' bloc
is thus in the hands of the new people.
The new foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, has been
The new cabinet also features a
regional leader-Yury Trutnev,
who has not quite completed a first term as governor of Perm Region. He heads
the Natural Resources Ministry. His sole credential justifying the appointment
is, it would appear at first glance, his training (he is a 1978 graduate of the
Mining Faculty of Perm's Polytechnical Institute as a
mining engineer). Trutnev appears to share the ideas
of Sergey Kiriyenko, the president's representative
to the Volga District.
Mikhail Zurabov,
the former head of the Russian Pension Fund, is the sole member of the cabinet
with a 'family' background. At first glance, this is a promotion for him-he
heads a ministry that will combine two old ministries, health and labor. On the other hand, he loses control of the financial
flows of the Pension Fund and finds himself facing the extremely tricky
problems of veterans and physicians. In introducing the new government, Fradkov announced that Zurab's
deputy for his labor and social development
responsibilities would be the former deputy prime minister Galina
Karelova and for health questions Vladimir Starodubov, who has been director of a Health Ministry
department.
The head of the combined Culture and
Information Ministry is Aleksandr Sokolov,
rector of the Moscow Conservatory. He will have two deputies, whom Fradkov promised would be known to everyone. Sokolov himself does not cut much of a figure in political
circles. He faces in his job, aside from cultural questions as such, the matter
of working with the media, one of the thorniest of current questions. Sokolov is replacing Mikhail Shvydkoi
and the somewhat tarnished Mikhail Lesin. Sokolov himself became rector of the conservatory after the
removal of Mikhail Ovchinnikov for financial
violations. Who Sokolov's deputies will be is now a
major topic of discussion. Both Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
and Vasily Aksyonov have
been mentioned as possible choices.
Andrey Fursenko, a longtime
Igor Levitin's
designation as transportation minister is further evidence that a new team has
replaced the old oligarchs in
With all this, the most vivid
figures of the former government remain in place, throwing doubt on the
commonly bruited notion of the 'technical character' of the new cabinet.
Specifically, remaining in the government are Sergey Ivanov
(defense), Igor Ivanov (who
goes from foreign minister to secretary of the National Security Council),
German Gref (economics and trade), Aleksey Kudrin (finance), Sergey Shoigu
(emergency situations), Yury Chaika
(justice), Viktor Khristenko (industry and energy)
and Aleksandr Gordeyev
(agriculture).
Thus, if Vladimir Putin is re-elected, formation of a new cabinet becomes a
mere formality.
Translated by Howard Goldfinger
http://www.rosbaltnews.com/2004/03/17/65955.html