by Anna Barkhudarova

Created on: May 21, 2008

New cabinet old actors

A newly elected president usually appoints his own cabinet with people from his surroundings, which generally means that new actors come in to the scene. However, in the case of Mr. Medvedev's cabinet, a new president of the Russian Federation, the faces are all too familiar. It seems that along with Mr. Putin becoming a prime minster his long standing allies came in the package as a bonus. This was another proof that Puttin, the ex-KGB agent who ran the country for eight years, is doing everything that he can to stay in power for little longer. With Putin becoming the prime-minister and the newly appointed ministers who are all powerful figures in Russian political scene, Medvedev's new entourage is said to become an unusually powerful team, perhaps even more powerful than the president itself. The appointments are confirming the analysts' predictions that the real power figure in Russia still remains Vladimir Putin.

Here is a breakdown of a new cabinet: the head of the Medvedev's Kremlin administration, an ally of Putin, and a former government chief of staff with some links to the security services, is occupied by Sergey Narishkin. Another key minister Vladislav Surkov was appointed as the first deputy chief of staff.

Former press secretary of Putin, Aleksei Gromov, was also left within the Kremlin walls as deputy chief of the presidential staff. Finance minister, who has been in the position for quite some time, Aleksei Kudrin was re-appointed again, and Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister affairs, who is viewed as anti-Western diplomat outside of Moscow, kept his seat as well. "While planning the optimization of federal executive authorities, we aimed to increase the efficiency of the state machinery and its personnel," Putin described his nominations to the reporters. This statement solely proves again that these nominations were hardly the sole decision of Mr. Medvedev and does not speak of its independence from his mentor.

The new premier's chief of staff and one of the five deputy prime minister became the ex- governor of oil- rich region, Sergey Sobyanin. Another figure known for his closeness to the security services, a former deputy head of the presidential administration, Igor Sechin became one of the other five deputy prime ministers and will be governing industry and energy.
Former prime minister Viktor Zubkov became one of the two first deputy prime ministers . The other very senior position is occupied by Igor Shuvalov, who was Putin's main economic adviser at the Kremlin. With the new President who has never served in the security services and have been regarded as a person coming from more liberal backgrounds, the number of security services personnel would have been expected to be reduced. However, Medvedev has appointed another security services agent, ex- chief of FSB Nikolai Patrushev, a Putin ally, to run Russia's powerful Security Council and promoted Alexander Bortnikov to replace Patrushev in his old role.

Time will only show which course this new cabinet will take but it is possible to assume that it will follow the 2020 goals set by the previous president to restore country to its old status of the Super Power. The only question is at what cost.

Learn more about this author, Anna Barkhudarova.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.