The Russian authorities do not explain their actions to the populace enough, but societal demand and new technologies will change that, outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.
“The authorities … need to change as an institute, given the new communication technologies and [public] demands for trust and justice,” Medvedev said at the meeting of his open government informal group in Moscow.
The government’s current reluctance to explain itself to the public stems partly from the feeling of legitimacy it obtained through elections, but partly from lack of understanding about the realities of the 21st century, Medvedev said.
He spoke in response to criticism from Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of the liberal Ekho Moskvy radio, who rebuked the open government at the Tuesday meeting for not including opposition activists who participated in this winter’s mass rallies in Moscow.
Medvedev said that some of the participants of the rallies, though not protest leaders, collaborated with his open government, and that the protest drive was not organized enough for the authorities to directly work with.
The open government, created by Medvedev in 2011 and initially dubbed “The Big Government,” is an informal group of experts and public society figures that is to consult the real Russian government, which Medvedev is expected to head after the presidential inauguration of his successor Vladimir Putin in May.
