| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
A High Honor and a Personal Calling
// Dmitry Medvedev spends a day being a presidential candidate
Meet Dmitry Medvedev
First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev took a day off yesterday to meet with supporters of his presidential campaign. In two hours, he answered questions about pensions, housing for servicemen, sports, agricultural life and more. Suzanna Farizova reports.
Dmitry Medvedev came to the Nizhny Novgorod fairgrounds accompanied by the presidential guard service. Unlike his press service and aides, they continue working as usual even when the first deputy prime minister takes a vacation day. In the auditorium, against a background of the colors of the Russian flag and the slogan “We will win together!”, Medvedev, flanked by his public liaison head, State Duma member from the United Russia faction Pavel Krasheninnikov, and his campaign manager, Sergey Sobyanin, who has been on vacation as the chief of the presidential executive staff since the beginning of Medvedev's run, answered questions and accepted good wishes.
The event and the space it was held in was paid for by the Medvedev campaign, in accordance with the law “On Presidential Elections.” Expenses for the press center were 83,190 rubles. Rental of the hall cost 30,000 rubles. Food and accommodations set the campaign back 18,500 rubles and 1.3 million rubles were spent on the flights from Ufa to Nizhny Novgorod to Moscow.
More than 300 people, all members of public organizations that support the candidate or his own public liaison workers, dutifully put the candidate through his campaign paces under the watchful eye of Krasheninnikov.
Candidate Medvedev stated that a fund for cooperation in housing utilities reform would be established in the near future and 240 billion rubles would be invested in it. By 2009, the average pension would be 5500 rubles and systems of cofinancing of pension accounts and pension savings insurance would be launched. The problem of high airfares would be solved through increased competition and the state would “pursue the topic of housing for servicemen to the end,” with investments of 30 billion rubles in that area this year alone. Nor did Medvedev avoid the topic of ecology. Rather, he called for equality with the West, where “if someone sneezes in the wrong place, they make such a fuss!”
Vera Onukhova, from the candidates public liaison in Leningrad Region, was particularly concerned about children's health and asked the first deputy prime minister not to abandon the national health project. He said that was unthinkable. “The health of children and the implementation of the national project for healthcare are top government priorities,” he said. “That's not some election campaign program. We have to restore medicine in the schools, where it's not very good. They weigh them and measure them once a year and give them a thermometer. There should be a real mini medical center.”
Olympic biathlon champion Galina Kukleva was so nervous that she was unable to formulate her question at first. After a few calming words from the candidate, she was able to implore him to restore the country's standing in the sports world. Medvedev instantly paid reverence to Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he was a “great guy,” without whom the 2014 Olympics would never have come to Sochi.
Tomsk businessman Oleg Kondrashev asked about the candidate's plans for fighting corruption. “It is no secret that the law is very distant for many people,” Kondrashev began. “Usually it's faster and easier just to come to an agreement somehow. It happens in government institutions as well, and it is a fruitful way to develop corruption. Will you fight this? How hard will you fight?”
“How hard do you need to fight?” candidate Medvedev asked rhetorically. “I am a lawyer, and I think that the time has come to return to following the law. Right down to buying licensed CDs and not jaywalking. We have to form a national plan for fighting corruption that will include timely changes in the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedures Code. That plan will be prepared in the coming months.”
Suddenly, the candidate was inspired with an idea for a new plan, the creation of a national food security project. Russia should “feed herself herself,” he stated.
“Things are already happening in that area,” Medvedev continued. “We have already invested enough money in that the agricultural complex. Now we need to continue to invest in acceptable conditions in the villages. And for small agricultural producers. We have been giving up to 300,000 rubes in credit without collateral. But it is equally important to ensure normal conditions for delivering the harvest. To get domestic products onto store shelves and not be squeezed out by imports. But that is a trade issue. The owners of large chains often demand a large bonus for the sale of a product. Therefore, people go to the outdoor market. That situation has to be changed.”
A fellow calling himself “Dmitry out of Kuban” decided to ask how the candidate felt about corporate raiding and the transfer of property to the state. Medvedev answered laconically that “there is nothing to discuss,” since it should all be done within the law.
“I have instructions for you,” Evgeny Cherkashin, a lawyer from Kursk, informed Medvedev. “We must have an independent court, in which the judge makes decisions based on the law. The punishment for interfering in the activities of judges has to be made more severe.”
Medvedev agreed completely and suggested that judges should attend to their independence themselves. “The independence of a judge is a problem for the judicial corporation itself. Much depends on people's faith in the legal system. Our people will begin to respect the courts when they consider them independent.”
There were more instructions following, this time to maintain the policies of Putin that are “returning human pride and dignity to us.”
“I understand how important succession, stability are to our country,” the candidate said. “We've had enough revolution. We need decades of stable growth. I am ready to continue the policies of President Putin. Even before, I tried to do things seriously, what I could, when I was assigned to it. If we continue to work together, it will be a benefit to our state!”
Moscow City Duma member from the United Russia Party and member of Medvedev's public liaison from Moscow Evgeny Gerasimov was forced to speak over applause to ask what kind of relations with Putin Medvedev sees in the long term.
“It was always comfortable for me to work with him,” Medvedev answered. “There was such a productive, cooperative comradery. In the long term, we will work to fulfill the obligations our country took on itself under President Putin. For me, that is a high honor and a personal calling.”
In closing, they decided to ask Medvedev about the role of the United Russia Party in the future of our country. He answered that the party has its shortcomings, but its ideology “is certainly one of those that determine our country's system.”
“It is our largest, strongest party and I am grateful to it for nominating me fort president of the country!” Medvedev concluded.
After the meeting with those voters, Medvedev called for support at a meeting with journalists “to work together further and complete the tasks that are necessary and important to society and every person.” Then he flew back to Moscow, to work.
Suzanna Farizova
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 28, 2008
|
|
|
