October, 25 Alexander Voloshin, Kremlin's powerful chief of staff, informed Russian President about his decision to resign. There is an opinion that he had resigned in protest of the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He was furious that he has not been told that Khodorkovsky, the CEO of the oil giant YUKOS will be arrested, and had no wish to work in such conditions. President Vladimir Putin had accepted Alexander Voloshin's resignation on Monday night after meeting for several hours with top Kremlin officials.
Voloshin, 47, is seen as one of the last figures in the Kremlin to have hung on from the era of Putin's predecessor Boris Yeltsin and a leader of an administration clan known as "the Family" that battled the hawkish "siloviki" camp of former secret service agents that recently emerged in Putin's court. He was considered supporting big business and an instrumental Kremlin aide who managed to skillfully mediate between the various administration factions and parliament lawmakers on key economic reform issues. His potential resignation had been rumored in Moscow for months as the ?Family? -- which supported big businesses including Yukos -- was being squeezed out by the siloviki. Voloshin is widely believed to have stepped down after realizing that he was no longer able to defend the interests of the Family, officials appointed by Boris Yeltsin and their big business allies, from the onslaught of the siloviki.
October, 30 Putin accepted Voloshin?s resignation and immediately appointed Dmitry Medvedev, who was Voloshin?s assistant to fill the vacated seat. Some analysts believe that by this appointment Putin has prevented the siloviki from becoming the sole players in his administration who considered the acceptation of Voloshin?s resignation as their victory.
Medvedev, 38 graduated from the same St. Petersburg law school as Putin and worked with him in the St. Petersburg city administration in the early 1990s. Putin brought both of them into the Kremlin shortly after he was elected in 2000. Medvedev?s candidacy has been named fairly long ago by many people, but we know not very much about him. So, who is Mr. Medvedev, an dwill he be the worthy substitution of Voloshin?
While working as a teacher of the St. Petersburg State University, in the law faculty from 1990 up to 1999, Medvedev had been respected by his students. Nikolai Kropachev, dean of the law faculty and chairman of the Ustavnoi court in St. Petersburg recalls: "They wrote to say what a good lecturer he was and how much they loved him."
Many analysts suppose that Medvedev will not able match the weight of Voloshin, who was the longest-serving chief of presidential staff in post - Soviet Russia, because of his relative weakness and lack of experience in economic policymaking. Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Panorama think tank, believes that Medvedev will be able only to limit, not match, the political clout of the siloviki group, which is led by deputy heads of the presidential administration Viktor Ivanov and Igor Sechin.
"Voloshin was a generator of ideas, a creator," Alexei Makarkin of the Center for Political Technologies said. "While formally a subordinate, he was also somewhat of a partner for Putin, while the newly promoted men are more the obedient executioners of the president's will."
Medvedev, we must give him his due, started working as the chief of staff rather lively, telling in some interviews about his own view on the Yukos scandal. He called on the Russian officials to ?always take into account thoroughly the economical consequences of their actions?; and expressed his doubt in ?juridical effectiveness of Yukos shares arrest?. Analysts agree that Medvedev by the chief of presidential administration is a fruit of the compromise of the "Family" and "security officers". The last do not consider him to be of their team, and liberals neither. Being the first deputy of Voloshin, Medvedev has announced a number of statements which reflect a duality and flexibility of his position, so necessary today. For example, having recognized, that there are about 2 million officials in Russia now, he nevertheless has not supported reduction of their number. According to him, our state should become absolutely different for implementing such reduction,; and it will take not one year, but decades. So, it is obvious, that the new chief of administration does not have distinguished radical mind.
To cut a long story short, Medvedev will likely support that balance of force in administration of the president which has developed after the attack on Yukos and Voloshin?s resignations He, as pragmatically thinking official, will not start to act queer.
Author: Alexandra Belyaeva
