Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, born 14 September 1965, is the third and current President of Russia, inaugurated on 7 May 2008. He won the presidential election held on 2 March 2008 with 71.25% of the popular vote.
Medvedev was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government on 14 November 2005. Formerly Vladimir Putin's Chief of Presidential Staff, he was also the Chairman of Gazprom's board of directors, a post he had held, for the second time, since 2000. Medvedev's candidacy was backed by then President Vladimir Putin. On 10 December 2007, he was informally endorsed as a candidate for the forthcoming presidential elections by the largest Russian political party, United Russia and several pro-presidential parties, and officially endorsed by United Russia on 17 December 2007. A technocrat and political appointee, Medvedev had never held elective office before 2008.
Medvedev was born to Professor of the Leningrad Institute of Technology Anatoly Afanasevich Medvedev (November 1926 — 2004) and Yulia Veniaminovna Medvedeva (née Shaposhnikova, born 21 Novermer 1939), and brought up in Kupchino district of Leningrad. He grew up in a 40-square-metre (430 sq ft) flat (which was considered quite large for a family of three in the Soviet Union at that time).
Medvedev was a B student at the secondary school. His future wife, Svetlana Linnik, was his classmate. Medvedev was fond of sports, in particular weightlifting. He was a fan of English bands Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.
He graduated from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1987 (together with Ilya Yeliseyev, Anton Ivanov, Nikolay Vinnichenko and Konstantin Chuychenko) and in 1990 received his PhD in private law from the graduate school of the same university. Anatoly Sobchak, an early democratic politician of the 1980s and 1990s, was one of his professors, and Medvedev later participated in Sobchak's successful Saint Petersburg mayoral campaign. In 1990 he worked in Leningrad Municipal Soviet of People's Deputies under the supervision of Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Churov, later the head of the President election committee, also started under Putin at that time.
Between 1991 and 1999 Medvedev, in addition to his business activities and participation in the Saint Petersburg City Administration, held a position of docent at his alma mater university, now renamed to Saint Petersburg State University.
2008 presidential elections. Following his appointment as First Deputy Prime Minister, many political observers expected Medvedev to be nominated as Putin's successor for the 2008 presidential elections. There were other potential candidates, such as Sergey Ivanov and Viktor Zubkov, but on 10 December 2007, President Putin announced that Medvedev was his preferred successor. The announcement was staged on TV with four parties suggesting Medvedev's candidature to Putin, and Putin then giving his endorsement. The four pro-Kremlin parties were United Russia, Fair Russia, Agrarian Party of Russia and Civilian Power. United Russia held its party congress on 17 December 2007 where by secret ballot of the delegates, Medvedev was officially endorsed as their candidate in the 2008 presidential election. He formally registered his candidacy with the Central Election Commission on 20 December 2007 and said he would step down as chairman of Gazprom, since under the current laws, the president is not permitted to hold another post. His registration was formally accepted as valid by the Russian Central Election Commission on 21 January 2008.
Political analysts believed that Putin's choice of a successor would coast to an easy election-day victory, as pre-election opinion polls indicated that a substantial majority of potential voters would back Putin's chosen candidate for president. An opinion poll by Russia's independent polling organization, the Levada Center, conducted over the period 21–24 December 2007 indicated that when presented a list of potential candidates, 79% of Russians were ready to vote for Medvedev if the election were immediately held. In his first speech after being endorsed, Medvedev announced that, as President, he would appoint Vladimir Putin to the post of prime minister to head the Russian government. Although constitutionally barred from a third consecutive presidential term, such a role would allow Putin to continue as an influential figure in Russian politics.[35] The constitution allows him to return to the presidency later. Some analysts have been quick to point out that such a statement shows that Medvedev recognizes that he would only be a figurehead president. Putin pledged that he would accept the position of prime minister should Medvedev be elected president. Although Putin had pledged not to change the distribution of authority between president and prime minister, many analysts expected a shift in the center of power from the presidency to the prime minister post when Putin assumed the latter under a Medvedev presidency. Election posters have portrayed the pair side-by-side with the slogan "We Will Be Victorious Together".
In January 2008, Medvedev launched his presidential campaign with stops in the oblasts. With preliminary results showing he would probably win the 2 March 2008 presidential election by a landslide, Medvedev vowed to work closely with the man who chose him for the job, Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Churov, Chairman of the Presidential Election Committee, was the friend of both Putin and Medvedev with whom they started to work back in the 1990s in Sobchak's administration in St. Petersburg. The Committee denied participation in elections to the opposition leaders Kasparov and Kasyanov using technical formalities in the election law previously adjusted to hinder the opposition election campaign. The three candidates that were allowed to participate were not considered dangerous for Medvedev and did virtually nothing to challenge him. Medvedev declined to participate in political debates with the other candidates.
In a campaign speech, Medvedev advocated private property, economic deregulation, low taxes, an independent judiciary, anti-corruption, and defending personal freedoms. His phrase "Freedom is better than non-freedom" said in Krasnoyarsk during his election campaign was widely cited as a sign of liberal changes by some and ironically by others.
Taking the Presidential Oath in the Grand Kremlin Palace on 7 May 2008.
Medvedev was seen as generally more liberal than his predecessor, Vladimir Putin.
Medvedev was elected President of Russia on 2 March 2008. According to the final election results, he won 70.28% of votes with a turnout of over 69.78% of registered voters.
The fairness of the election was disputed by many western observers and officials. Andreas Gross, head of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) mission stated that the elections was "neither free nor fair". Moreover the few western vote monitors bemoaned the inequality of candidate registration and the abuse of administrative resources by Medvedev allowing blanket television coverage.
Russian programmer Shpilkin analyzed the results of Medvedev's election and came to the conclusion that the results were falsified by the election committees. However, after the correction for the alleged falsification factor, Medvedev still came out as the winner, although with 63% of the vote instead of 70%.
Medvedev's election continued an alternating pattern of hairy and bald Russian leaders dating back at least to Alexander I of Russia. (wikipedia - aftermathnews.files.wordpress.com - www.globalvoicesonline.org - www.minnpost.com)
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