Last week Dmitry Medvedev sharply intensified his activities demonstrating his intention to take a more active part in anti-crisis management, including defining priorities of state support. A clear signal was sent to the functionaries regarding the necessity to be more initiative and thus take more responsibility upon themselves. The criticism was mainly aimed at governors (the policy of ‘stick’ was demonstrated early last week when four governors were dismissed) but the government was also addressed, although the president shared approaches with the PM in the sphere of protectionism in economy amid the crisis.
Dmitry Medvedev’s team also became more active noticeably, especially in its natural sphere of influence – the judicial branch of power. In particular, the higher qualification panel of judges ruled to deprive Lyudmila Maikova, head of the arbitration court of the Moscow district, of her status of judge. She and Moscow Arbitration Court chair Oleg Sviridenko are related to the clientele of the so-called siloviki. Now Supreme Arbitration Court head Anton Ivanov has a chance to build the arbitration vertical, which he has been trying to do for some years. His plans are likely to be even broader as he declared about the necessity to clear up Russia’s laws. If he succeeds, this may lead to bigger attractiveness of court trials compared to informal arbitration by law enforcement bodies, which will decrease their weight. At the same time, one should not overestimate the role of the president’s top hundred reservists, who were announced last week, in the process of strengthening of positions of Dmitry Medvedev’s team. The analysis of its composition shows it consists of representatives of different elite groups.
The staff struggle in the Cabinet remained sharp in general; it received an additional impulse after agriculture minister Alexey Gordeyev and his ‘right hand’ deputy minister Alexander Kozlov left their posts. On the whole, there are two Gordeyev’s deputies who are claiming the vacant post: one of them (Andrey Slepnev) is related to Arkady Dvorkovich’s group while the other (Nikolay Arkhipov) is likely to be a protégé of the so-called siloviki.