Interview with Kirill Koktysh

Kirill Koktysh from the Moscow State University of International Relations joined RT to speak on the priorities of the would-be Russian government.

Russia today: The formation of the Cabinet is taking longer than most of us expected. What are your thoughts on this?

Kirill Koktysh: To my mind, first of all, the main intrigue of this new government appointment is not who will be appointed but who will not be appointed, who will not reserve his high-ranking place. The first question is that of Vice Premier’s post, whether Sergey Ivanov and Igor Medvedev will remain in their offices. The second question is whether they will be joined by somebody else who we don’t know so far. These are the questions that are actually being bargained. That’s why it is taking so much time, from the one side. But if we look deeper, the main questions which are being discussed now are: What will the structure of Presidential Election be? Who will be the man in charge of Russian politics in the nearest future?

RT: Do you think Mr Zubkov’s government will be a ‘caretaker’ government before joininRT:g the election cycle, all the way to the presidential election?
 
K.K.: I think this government won’t be a technical one. The previous Fradkov’s government could be called technical as well but this epoch has passed. Mr Zubkov has proved with his first session which he held with the old government that he is really a tough leader who is going to return the centre of decision-making to government as it was in the Kasyanov’s times. So it seems it will be a strong government and probably one day it will be even a responsible government. I mean that the government will be probably appointed according to the results of the parliamentary elections. Not this time, but it is real for the future.
 
RT: What do you think of the new Cabinet’s priorities?
 
K.K.: Well, it is a very difficult question actually. We can say for sure that the previous priority – energetic policy is the key policy of Russia – will, probably, remain the same. That’s for sure. Probably much more social accents will be put at the further policy of the government. But as far as the other spheres of the policy are concerned, we can only speculate. It is very hard to say something when even people dealing with politics can’t tell what priorities seem to be fixed.