Putin gives ex-ministers new roles
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given several ministers purged from his Cabinet new positions in his administration.
Mr Putin named ex-interior minister Rashid Nurgaliyev as an under-secretary of the presidential Security Council and named several other former ministers as presidential advisers.
Yesterday, Mr Putin, who won a third term in March’s election, named a new Cabinet led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, retaining some key figures but dropping some of the most unpopular ministers, like Mr Nurgaliyev, health minister Tatyana Golikova and education minister Andrei Fursenko.
Mr Nurgaliyev has faced massive public criticism over widespread incidents of torture and other abuses by police, while Ms Golikova and Mr Fursenko have been linked to the worsening state of the nation’s healthcare and education systems.
The appointment of former ministers to new official positions had been expected given Mr Putin’s record of keeping his lieutenants in government service despite public criticism.
Mr Putin’s fellow KGB veterans Sergei Ivanov and Nikolai Patrushev have been reappointed Kremlin chief of staff and head of the presidential Security Council respectively.
Mr Putin spent four years in the premier’s seat after serving two consecutive terms as the president due to a constitutional term limit, but he remained Russia’s number one leader. His protege, Mr Medvedev, stepped down to allow Mr Putin to reclaim the presidency, receiving the premiership in exchange.
Several officials who served in Mr Medvedev’s administration during his presidency followed him to the Cabinet, while Mr Putin retained some of those who served under him during his premiership, like his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who got the same job in the Kremlin today.
