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Medvedev says appointment of ex-deputies as ministers “opportune topic”

“I think the government has a big potential,” he said in an interview with Vladimir Pozner

PETROPAVLOVSK KAMCHATSKY, June 4 (Itar-Tass) —— Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the appointment of former deputies as ministers was an “opportune topic”.

“I think the government has a big potential,” he said in an interview with Vladimir Pozner on Channel One on Monday, June 4. “On the one hand, the government has been removed by three-fourths. On the other hand, it has no people who have never worked in the government system before.”

“This is very important,” Medvedev said, citing his personal experience. “When I joined public service I was a successful young man, I was 34 and it seemed to me that if I was successful for example in business, if I was able to manage a hundred directors, I would certainly handle the government staff somehow”, but “that’s not the case. It’s a totally different genre”.

“This is why it is very important that new ministers do not lose their bearing in the government and work as they see fit,” the prime minister said.

Medvedev said he had selected candidates for the government himself and all of them were supported by President Vladimir Putin.

“That was my choice,” he said in an interview with Vladimir Pozner on Channel One on Monday, June 4, replying to a question about the appointment of Vladimir Medinsky as the new minister of culture.

Medvedev said that of the “list of people” he had proposed to Putin, the president had “supported all 100 percent” of them.

“Therefore there are no people who appeared there in some other way,” he added.

The prime minister noted that he had discussed many nominations with Putin “when the transfer of power was in progress and when we had a president-elect and the outgoing president. We had a frank and straightforward talk with him all these nominations, and his position was simple: I will support the nominations proposed by the chairman of the government because if I propose someone as chairman of the government, he has the right to form his own team,” Medvedev said.

He recalled that “the position was exactly the same four years ago when the Putin government was being formed” and “this is an absolutely normal situation”.

The prime minister said, however, that this does not mean that he is “pleased with everything” because “one can feel absolutely satisfied only when something has been achieved”. “But it is true that the people in the government are the ones I nominated,” he added.

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