First Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov was the only top official to visit the first session of the Machinery Producers Union where Sergey Chemezov (left) will be serving as chairman.
Photo: Dmitry Kostyukov
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Arms Exporting Agency Director Denies Ambitions for Russian Presidency
Sergey Chemezov, head of Rosoboronexport and President Vladimir Putin’s close friend, has said he has no presidential ambitions or any intentions to make a move into big politics. The director of the state-controlled arms exporter made the statement at the first session of the Russian Machinery Producers Union which elected Mr. Chemezov its chairman.
Rosoboronexport Director General Sergey Chemezov has known Vladimir Putin since the 1980s when he was in the same line of work in Germany as the would-be Russian president. Under Mr. Chemezov’s leadership, Rosoboronexport struck major deals, such as purchases of AvtoVAZ and VSMPO-Avisma, and turned into the sole Russian arms exporter. Last December, Sergey Chemezov was elected to sit at the United Russia party’s supreme council, a move that analysts viewed as a sign for his increasing political ambitions.
Contrary to expectations, neither the Russian president nor speakers of the parliament attended the session of the new organization that united as much as 60 enterprises. Instead, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov read out the president’s address to machinery producers.
Sergey Chemezov opened his speech, saying that the Union is in no way “a new industrial party” as media have already dubbed it, but “a nonprofit organization”. Asked about his plans to seek high-ranking posts in the government or elsewhere, Sergey Chemezov said in an interview with Kommersant: “I have no political ambitions that the press is writing about. I’m not going to go into politics.”
Members of the Machinery Union, however, believe that the head of Rosoboronexport has ambitions to chair the government. “Mr. Chemezov spoke today not as a future Russian president but rather as a future prime minister,” a high-placed source in the union told Kommersant on condition of anonymity.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 02, 2007
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