The Russian State Duma voted for the decree appointing Alexei Kudrin to the position of the head of the Accounts Chamber.
"Appoint Alexei L. Kudrin to the position of the Chairman of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation and send this decree to the President of the Russian Federation and to the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation," the document says.
Kudrin served earlier as the Finance Minister in 2000-2011 and concurrently held the office of the Deputy Prime Minister in 2000-2004 and 2007-2011. He was the chief executive of the Center for Strategic Research since 2016.
Speaking with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, the president of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation, Mikhail Vinogradov, noted that the appointment of Alexei Kudrin as head of the Accounts Chamber is ambivalent. "Alexei Kudrin's work at the Accounts Chamber is more organic than at the Center for Strategic Research or as an author of reforms. In addition, the position of the Accounts Chamber head gives him direct access to President Vladimir Putin and the possibility of serious influence on all key players. At the same time, it is important for Kudrin to demonstrate the ambiguity of his previous work in the Center for Strategic Research, and it can be achived either by giving additional content to the Accounting Chamber's work, or by demonstrating the temporary nature of his stay in this position," he explained.
President of the Minchenko Consulting Communication Group, Yevgeny Minchenko, stressed the the discrepancy between the positioning of Alexei Kudrin and his new position in power. "Tatyana Golikova has shown in previous years that the Accounts Chamber can be quite a serious tool, including a public one. On the other hand, this is not quite a place for a person who claims to be an architect of reforms," he explained.
"Kudrin's return to power, in fact, changes nothing now. Vladimir Putin repeatedly offered him posts in the executive branch, but it turned out that the pause between Kudrin's resignation from the post of deputy prime minister and the present moment has dragged on. It may therefore be assumed that his appointment as head of the Accounts Chamber is the first step towards Kudrin's smooth return to power. Perhaps in 2-3 years, Kudrin may become deputy prime minister again," Yevgeny Minchenko suggested.
President of the Minchenko Consulting Communication Group stressed that Kudrin had to return to the executive bodies, since there is no place for an alternative moderately oppositional loyalist today. "Now that the government is formed and it is already clear that he is not in the presidential administration, it is better for Kudrin to assume at least the post of the head of the Accounts Chamber," the political scientist concluded.
On May 17, the State Duma released Tatyana Golikova from the post of the Accounts Chamber chairwoman. President Vladimir Putin has proposed the candidacy of Alexei Kudrin to the State Duma for the position of chairman of the Accounts Chamber.
