As constitutional arrangements have it, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov will sign a government resignation application immediately after the inauguration galas, says the Cabinet press service. Its spokesmen refused to make whatever conjectures on prospective structural reforms of the federal government. "The upcoming Cabinet stepdown will be a sheer formality, said the President. We remember it-but we don't forget, either, that the say-so on prospective reshuffles and structural changes belongs to the President," remarked a government PR officer.
New Russia is in for its ninth Cabinet stepdown, and a fourth caused by a presidential inauguration. Ivan Silayev's Cabinet, active since June 15, 1990, was a first to constitutionally resign with Boris Yeltsin inaugurated. The situation was re-enacted with Victor Chernomyrdin's Cabinet in 1996, and Vladimir Putin's, 2000.
The other governments were dismissed by presidential decrees-Victor Chernomyrdin's Cabinet, March 1998, Sergei Kirienko's in August the same year, Evgeni Primakov's and Sergei Stepashin, May and August 1999, respectively, and Mikhail Kasyanov's, February 2004.
President Putin is expected to offer a prime-ministerial nomination to the State Duma, parliament's lower house, even tomorrow, as soon as he is through the inauguration ceremony. A high Kremlin functionary did not rule out the prospect in a Novosti interview.
Mikhail Fradkov and the other ministers will have to go through the appointment routine again, after a short break. The Premier will be even harder put than his Cabinet members-he will have to face a Duma vote, while a presidential decree will suffice to distribute the other portfolios.
The Constitution leaves the President two weeks to think before he makes a prime-ministerial nomination to the Duma. As far as Novosti knows, however, he does not intend to wait for May 21-after all, Mr. Putin regards the post-inauguration Cabinet resignation as mere technical matter, he said as soon as he recently nominated Mikhail Fradkov Prime Minister.
Tomorrow's resignation will hardly bring a Cabinet reshuffle in its wake, through a structural change may come up. When President Putin visited Lipetsk, April 21, a reporter asked him whether the government was in for further structural reforms. "Possible. Certain initiatives have come in," was the reply. "My initial decree [on the government structure] was basic. We saw how it worked, and it became clear that something had been overlooked-the usual way with such things. There's ample room for progress." Upcoming minor reforms will improve government arrangements. Alexander Shokhin, head of an administrative reform ad hoc team of the Russian Industrialists' and Entrepreneurs' Guild, is sure of that. "It is hard to say now what the prospective presidential decree will be about. One thing is evident-the number of federal agencies will shrink, while federal services will get greater independence from respective ministries," he said.
Not only the government but those appointed on the Kremlin staff by presidential decrees applied to resign after Vladimir Putin's first inauguration, of four years ago. Those were the chief of staff, his deputies, the chief of protocol, the presidential press secretary, and Mr. Putin's aides and advisers. "That was made for the President to gather his crew," Kremlin officers now explain in a retrospect.
As far as Novosti knows, the President's men will not apply to resign now-Mr. Putin thoroughly reshuffled his crew a mere six weeks ago.
