It is well-known that as far back as on April 18 this year, the actual President in his interview in Sardinia after his talks with Italian Premier Silvio Berbuskoni, claimed that he has already determined in general the composition of his future government. However Putin said that the final word is of the new President, but emphasized that there are no principal disagreements between him and Dmitry Medvedev on this issue.
Putin stressed that he is going to increase the number of vice-premiers in his government versus the actual Government of Victor Zubkov. Today it has five vice-premiers including two first ones. The future Prime Minister denied mass media speculations that the new cabinet will include 15-16 vice-premiers, but he said that their number will be significantly more than today. According to RBC Daily experts who refer to “sources close to the Kremlin Administration” the new government may include 10 vice-premiers.
The expected vice-primer list may include: Alexey Kudrin (economy and finances), Tatyana Golikova (social assets), Sergey Patrushev (security and defense), actual Surgutneftegaz General Director Vladimir Bogdanov (power engineering), Dmitry Kozak (regional policy), Vladimir Yakunin (infrastructure development), Yuri Trutnev (land relations) , Alexey Gordeyev (agriculture and farming), Alexander Zhukov (innovative development/ science, education, small and medium enterprises). The post of the tenth vice-primer (state property and in another version – state-owned corporation and company governance) will be probably occupied by a businessman close to the Kremlin.
According to Alexander Nagorny, an expert of Sergey Kurginyan International Fund, a real candidate for a minister or even vice-premier is a promising politician, Governor of the Samara Region Vladimir Artyakov who may be appointed a person in charge of the state innovation policy. Actual Ministers Elvira Nabiulina, Sergey Lavrov, Sergey Shoigu, Rashid Nurgaliyev and Anatoly Serdukov will likely remain in the cabinet of ministers.
The government may also have a new post that is conventionally called by political analysts “the first first vice-premier” - a top-ranking government official who will partially assume technical functions of the actual Prime Minister and will be in charge of all government work coordination.
Experts expect that Vladimir Putin is going to radically modify the actual basic schemes of authority separation determined during Administrative Reform-2004. In particular the “ministry-agency-service” scheme will be modified. Putin prefers a vice-premier structure, i.e. a strong government basing on vice-premiers acting as “superministers”. Earlier the actual President explained his dislike to the ministry structure by the fact that ministers prefer to be “scene stealers”.
Political analyst Dmitry Bodovsky expects that a new institute of vice-premiers will be focused on solution of tactical problems while all strategic problems (implementation of the State Strategy up to 2040, preparation to Olympics-2014 in Sochi, etc) will be personally controlled by Vladimir Putin in his new status. The expert also expects that the Head of Government may create an “operational control” block for solution of urgent problems that means formation of the Government Presidium consisting of its Chairman, all his Deputies and security Ministers.
It is not excluded that certain ministries and services in the new government will be dismissed while new ministries will be established. The complicated and too rigid government structure evidently needs to be reformed. It was recently confirmed in particular by Boris Grizlov, Speaker of the State Duma and leader of “United Russia” who is a close supporter of Vladimir Putin.
Currently the ministries supervise 19 services (10 under the Premier and 5 under the President). In the new structure all services may be directly brought under the Government and supervised by one of new vice-premiers. Most probably, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and Ministry of Social Development and Health Care will be reformed. Each of them may be divided into two new ministries, agencies and state committees. It is quite possible that the science, education, communications, transport and power engineering may be supervised by independent administrations. It is not excluded also that the government structure may be added with actual Political Representatives of the President who under the new Premier will be in charge of the economy and social problems.
The future Russian government will be formally the first “party” government in the new history of Russia. It is expected that after Vladimir Punin becomes the “United Russia” Chairman on May 7, he will represent the interests of the party in the government. However, it is not clear yet if the new premier will be governed by the party principle when forming its cabinet in the situation when he refrained from party membership. Experts are sure that Vladimir Putin will air his personnel and organizational decisions at the very last moment as it was before.
Meanwhile, on April 25, Vladimir Putin signed a degree on establishment of three new posts in the Government Office. A personal press-secretary of the prime minister will be Dmitry Peskov who was earlier the First Deputy Head of the Kremlin Press Service. A chief of protocol will be Anton Vaino, who was the Deputy Head of the Government Office. The Prime Minister Public Speech Preparation Department will be headed by former Chief of President Administrative Office Dmitry Kalimulin. The maximum strength of the Government Office will be 1464 persons.
Observers associate the new appointments in this important sphere of new cabinet information support and image making with accelerated reorganization of the Russian “White House”. Most probably, many officials from other departments of the President Administration will be transferred to the Government Office. Observers indicate that Vladimir Putin is famous of his custom to work with those persons whom he knows well and with whom he successfully worked for a long time. On the other hand, certain his people will remain in the President Administration to ensure its fruitful cooperation and “tandem” work with the new cabinet.
Finally, according to the majority of observers, the new Prime Minister will be much more powerful figure in the Russian establishment than it was before. Vladimir Putin will be to a greater extent a political figure rather than “the technical premier”, and the government will become a powerful center of decision-making in the country.
