Medvedev Called Reasons for Government’s Resignation

Former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev spoke about the reasons for the cabinet’s resignation. According to him, this step is explained by the large-scale tasks facing the country outlined in the president’s message to the Federal Assembly. “In order to make all these decisions, the president should be absolutely free to discuss and take them without a backward glance to other factors, including the factor of government,” Medvedev said in his interview with Channel One. He recalled that the message sets the tasks on updating the political system, “to a certain extent even changing the balance of powers in the country.” According to him, this refers to the government, the parliament, partly the president, as well as the judicial system. Medvedev also noted that he had headed the Russian cabinet for eight years in total, and this is “a huge term,” Gazeta.ru reports. “This happened for the first time in modern Russia,” the former prime minister added. On January 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree appointing Mikhail Mishustin as Russian Prime Minister. Before that, the State Duma voted on the appointment of Mishustin, 383 deputies supported his candidacy, 41 abstained. No one voted against. The day before, Dmitry Medvedev, who served as prime minister, reported to the head of state on entire cabinet’s decision to resign in order to allow the Russian leader to take all necessary decisions to implement the proposals outlined in the message to the Federal Assembly. Putin approved the resignation and nominated the head of the Federal Tax Service for prime minister. The next day, the head of state signed a decree appointing Medvedev as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council.