Today, the Russian State Duma will consider the president's proposal to appoint Dmitry Medvedev as prime minister, who has already proposed candidates for the new government. In particular, Medvedev nominated Anton Siluanov to the office of the first deputy prime minister;Dmitry Kozak - deputy prime minister for energy and industry; Olga Golodets - deputy prime minister for culture and sports; Tatyana Golikova - deputy prime minister for social policy, labor, pensions and healthcare; Alexey Gordeev - deputy prime minister for agriculture; Vitaly Mutko - deputy prime minister for the construction sector.
Commenting on the upcoming appointments, member of the State Duma committee for the federal structure and local self-government, Denis Parfenov, expressed the opinion that the composition of the deputy prime ministers may be adjusted: "Recently, due to the international situation, due to the government's heightened attention to the development of the defense sector, the group of [general director of the Rostec state corporation Sergey] Chemezov strengthened. I do not exclude that he may become a member of the government, which would be logical, based on those intra-elite processes that are currently taking place. Many people have enough ambitions. For example, if you remember, recently [former first deputy chief of the presidential administration, Vladislav] Surkov wrote an article about the fact that Russia is a half-blooded country and so on, with a clear claim to a strategic vision. Most likely he wants to join the government. But not all desires will come true."
Commenting Dmitry Medvedev's re-appointment to the post of prime minister, Denis Parfenov said: "So this was shaping up to Dmitry Anatolyevich to remain at his current place. This means that alas many of the good wishes that were expressed in the solemn oath during the inauguration and in the president's speech made after it, will not come true. Unfortunately, the current composition of the government does not fulfill a significant part of those things that should have been done, as can be seen in the level of execution of the president's May decrees. New May decrees will probably be issued, there will be a new scope of work. It is obvious that while maintaining the current economic policy (this policy is completely corporate, focused on the interests of a rich minority, and all other categories of citizens, social strata have only its leftovers) we will increase the backlog from all the world's major powers. It's very disturbing... Of course, we need to change corporate policy to a socially oriented one, but it's impossible without changing the team."
The first deputy chairman of the Duma defense committee, Alexander Sherin, was less categorical: "The government of the Russian Federation should include professionals who have successful experience in the area in which a person is nominated as minister. The main thing is that there should be experience in working with results that could be applied to whole Russia. If there are some governors, some managers of large enterprises that give a decent result not only at the level of the Russian Federation, but European and world standards, then why not use this experience in whole Russia. We would be pleasantly surprised if representatives of the parliamentary parties were included in the government of the Russian Federation."
According to Sherin, the residents of the Russian Federation are concerned about the problems linked to public utilities rates, education, health care, infrastructure ... "The government of the Russian Federation should be formed including by package agreement, that is, one should listen to the opinion of parliamentary parties that have own specialists and professionals," the people's representative said.
The deputy chairman of the Duma committee on culture Olga Kazakova hopes that the systemic work will not be stopped: "We have many partner projects with the government, many important social programs have been launched, including the improvement of the urban environment, the New School project and the Small Motherland Culture project. It is important that these projects were continued."
