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Protégé in Russia Is Sworn In
By C. J. Chivers
The New York Times
Thursday 08 May 2008
Moscow - Dmitri A. Medvedev, the Kremlin insider and unprepossessing lawyer
who had never held elected office before, was sworn in as Russia's president
on Wednesday inside the Grand Kremlin Palace.
The ceremony, mixing czarist splendor with renewed Russian confidence, marked
the passing of formal power from departing President Vladimir V. Putin to his
young and untested protégé.
But the events also served as a tribute to the enduring stature and popularity
of Mr. Putin, who Mr. Medvedev nominated as prime minister within hours of taking
office.
Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. leader who had presided over Russia's economic
revival while consolidating power, rolling back civil liberties and leading
a government beset with corruption, arrived at the ceremony alone and before
Mr. Medvedev.
He stepped from a black limousine and briefly stood before the ceremonial Presidential
Regiment, which was standing outside in the chill. "Greetings, comrades!"
he said, and was met with a deep, rousing cheer. The soldiers' breaths
frosted the air.
In a departure from past inaugurations, the departing leader then addressed
the more than 2,400 guests inside St. Andrew's Hall before the new president
took his oath. Mr. Putin said that he had lived up to his promise, made eight
years ago, to serve the country and its citizens faithfully.
The remarks appeared to presage Mr. Putin's continued hand on Russian
power.
"It is extremely important for everyone together to continue the course
that has already been taken and has justified itself," he said.
Only then did Mr. Medvedev, 42, approach the lectern, rest his hand on a copy
of Russia's Constitution, and utter the oath of office.
In a brief address afterward, he touched themes he has embraced since Mr. Putin
selected him as his successor late last year and as he was shepherded through
a scripted election.
He emphasized improving living standards, education and medical care, and modernizing
Russia's narrow economy, which relies on oil and gas revenues, as well
as other forms of natural resource extraction.
"I would like to assure all of the citizens of this country that I will
be working to my fullest capacity," he said. "I fully realize how
much has yet to be done."
Mr. Medvedev, whose public persona is decidedly softer than Mr. Putin's,
also stressed the importance of civil rights, as he has in several speeches
since he became the presumptive president-elect.
Minutes later, Mr. Putin accompanied the new president outside to review the
passing formations of the ceremonial regiment. When the two men left the dais
after the last platoon passed, it was on cue from Mr. Putin, not Mr. Medvedev,
who followed the former president's lead.
The ceremony was brief. But the leaders' paired comments, and Mr. Putin's
physical dominance of each ceremonial stage, neatly framed the central questions
about what the inauguration will mean for Russia's politics and direction.
Will Mr. Putin remain the nation's preeminent politician and policy setter?
Or will Mr. Medvedev, whose career has been spent in his sponsor's shadow,
have the ability and latitude to choose the country's course?
Mr. Medvedev has no known political history as a member of the nation's
security services, whose members climbed through the ranks of government and
business under Mr. Putin to become a pervasive and dominant national force.
Mr. Putin, 55, managed to stay atop these often warring government clans, and
to mediate their disputes and secure enough of their loyalty to create the impression
of a stable, if not fully predictable, state. Whether Mr. Medvedev will be able
to navigate the country's bureaucratic and business disputes alone is
not clear.
Mr. Medvedev has also presented himself in paradoxical ways.
He had often complimented the style and achievements of Mr. Putin, with whom
he appears to have both a friendship and unwavering public support. But at times
Mr. Medvedev has publicly championed the rule of law and the importance of human
rights - both of which faced intensive pressure during Mr. Putin's
two terms.
His critics have said he is little more than Mr. Putin's puppet, and
that his pledges to liberalize the country and commit to human rights are undermined
by the very means of his election victory, against a weak slate of pro-Kremlin
candidates. The Russian government allowed no true opposition candidates to
compete.
Mr. Putin, who leads United Russia, the country's dominant political
party, is expected to be confirmed as prime minister at a special session of
the Parliament on Thursday. He wasted little time in moving toward office. The
Kremlin announced he intended to meet parliamentary leaders on Wednesday afternoon.
As Mr. Putin moved toward his new role, Mr. Medvedev's remarks and his
first presidential decree - guaranteeing public housing by 2010 for surviving
veterans of World War II - emphasized domestic affairs.
A difficult foreign-policy portfolio awaited him, including a West wary of
Russia after Mr. Putin's assertive style, and claims by Georgia, a Kremlin
satellite in Soviet times that has turned toward the West in recent years, that
Russia has been annexing the breakaway region of Abkhazia.
A reminder of the foreign policy challenges arrived almost immediately after
the ceremonies ended, when Marina Litvinenko, the widow of former K.G.B. officer
Alexander V. Litvinenko, issued a statement asking the new president to investigate
the killing of her husband.
Mr. Litvinenko died in London in 2006 after ingesting a toxic radioactive isotope,
polonium-210. He was a harsh Kremlin critic. From his deathbed, he had accused
Mr. Putin of ordering his killing.
The crime and its aftermath helped sour relations between Britain and Russia
and raised questions about how the Kremlin has conducted its foreign policy.
Mrs. Litvinenko said that if Mr. Medvedev was to live up to his promise to be
a reformer then he should set the record straight.
"You have an opportunity to reveal the secret of this crime to the world,
to name the instigators and the perpetrators, and to close this dark page of
Russian history," she said. "This would let you distance yourself
from the legacy of the previous regime.
"If you do not do it," she added, "all predictions of your
lack of independence would unfortunately be confirmed."
There was no immediate announcement on the composition of Mr. Medvedev's
government, or over how powers would be divided between the two Russian leaders.
The two men are scheduled to appear together on Friday at a military parade
in Red Square.
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Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting.
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