Yekaterinburg experts: “Vladimir Ustinov’s Resignation marks start of election campaign”

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Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov’s resignation should be bound to the presidential elections of 2008, political analysts in Yekaterinburg are quoted as saying by a REGNUM correspondent, while commenting on personnel changes in the Russian leadership. Under the official report, Russian prosecutor-general has sent in his resignation. The Russian president introduced the proposal on Ustinov’s resignation to the Federation Council, and the senators passed it by a majority.

According to political analyst Eduard Abelinskas, thus, start of preparations to the election campaign was announced. “Any personnel change should be considered in the context of the 2008 presidential elections. Evidently, now they need a person, who would fully control the situation in the governmental body he is in charge for. If somebody is appointed hastily and ‘from the audience,’ it will show that a true candidature was not considered enough by the groups that wanted to replace the prosecutor-general, first off all, by the presidential administration.”

As head of the Ural Institute for Applied Political Science and Economics Andrei Kuznetsov believes, “It will become clear what kind of changes should we expect, after Ustinov’s successor is appointed. Of course, in today’s Russia prosecutor-general is a very important figure. Replace of this official cannot come without consequences, because a system of governance is being established under principles of a certain political group. Any new leader in these conditions chooses his team under the principle of loyalty, principle of political compatibility, let me say so.”