so the twenty fourth of september is ten thirty pm watching our big story from us tonight the ruling tandem is set for rotation russia's prime minister vladimir putin will run for the presidency next year his candidacy was put forward by dmitri preventive who in turn agreed to lead the ruling party and the country's government . more on that in the late edition of people involved great show crosstalk. still. to.

welcome the crossfire guy people about russia's great political parlor game has come to an end president dmitri medvedev announced he would support but i'm a putin's candidacy to succeed him in next year's presidential poll was this the plan all along is a good idea and what what is called the tandem can you continue to work. can. start. to draw start russia's political future i'm joined by fred we're here in the studio with me he is the moscow correspondent for the christian science monitor adrian pap's in cambridge is a lecturer in politics at the university of kent and in london we cross to jonathan steele he is the international affairs commentator for the guardian all right gentlemen this is cross talk i mean she can jump in anytime you want but first i shall want to walk us through about what happened at united russia's convention that's very clear the guessing game is officially over prime minister vladimir

putin is said to run for president in two thousand and twelve election his candidacy endorsed of the united russia party convention by incumbent president. so if you're going privilege and you're having the proposal to have the electoral lists of the party united russia i'm to do some party work on condition of good performance in the parliamentary elections and my readiness for practical work in government i believe it will be right for the congress to support the candidacy of luck in your plan to not go for a new presidential election the announcement and speculation about the trajectory of russia's election cycle and reassures russians partners around the world concerned with political risk. the pleasure i'd like to express my gratitude to you for supporting my candidacy to run for president it's a great honor to make you put in has already served two terms president as. before madrid of took over the job in two thousand and eight addressing saturday's convention putin in terms of just take over the role as the next prime minister if

the party performs well in parliament elections in december. and with the parliamentary elections coming in i'd like to ask russian citizens to support the united russia party with the. recent constitutional amendments have extended the presidential term from four to six years which means that if prime minister putin is elected president in two thousand and twelve he could be in office until twenty twenty four back to you peter thank you very much for that marsha first i'd like to go to jonathan any surprises for you there to mr big very this indorsed of prime minister putin to succeed him you know there's no surprise at all it was always assumed that this would happen and i think it is actually confirmed that this was a plan already from a long time back i think could mean disappointment will be was because he had shown in the last few months that he was actually rather enjoying being president and still hope that there might be some change of plan on putting sergeant he could

carry on as president well that's obviously not going to happen well. about that well it will he'll become prime minister so continuity continuity in a lot more continuity than well that sounds like a nice idea but politics doesn't quite work like this this is about legitimacy and credibility and i don't mean by just changing positions they're rooting to have them come preserve their supporters already crumbling and they need to do more than just swap dogs well i mean supporters of support for whom for a united russia or for. well for united said russia as a party but also from modernization various clear desire thought up but implementation has been extremely slow and only very partial so they question is will president who's in the future president putin gave the government any real power to implement policies that stamp out corruption it's not looking like about ok fred. you're we talked earlier you're not surprised at all but you think this is

more about the parliamentary election this is the timing of it all because we all knew it was as i started out the program this was a parlor game everybody's been talking about it for months but it you know the the united russia party is low in the polls or not as high as it used to be and they need a superstar to come out in and really inflate their numbers because going into the election in december they don't have the same kind of strength that they used to i i frankly don't know why they decided to do this now the script of the proven year usually have announcing the president after the elections after they've got some signals because the system as it's constructed right now doesn't give a lot of signals from below i mean reliable signals that the people higher up can understand. so i guess it's clear it is clear to everybody that united russia is in trouble politically it's you don't have to go very far to hear people speaking in awfully cynical tones about the party and frankly the system

that it dominates represents there is a clear palpable disaffection creeping in it's not rebellious it it's not really people are ready to go into the streets but the tone is really different than it was in the last election cycle and probably this has been picked up they feel like they need to do some more intense stagecraft maybe pick for the duma elections but it frankly. i think the main way. it's not the united russia when the world actions i think the number to watch voter turn out yes to you know what i've said in the past that probably the biggest fear would be mr apathy there jonathan if i can go back to you i mean i can see some of the some of the questions that. i could see coming from all of you on the panel here but the

fact of the matter is mr putin is genuinely very popular in russia and going through some of the levada of opinion polls which are considered the most reliable here he comes out consistently is the most popular by a long shot politician in this country well that's true and that's always been the case but i think the numbers have gone down a bit yes they have come back to the one of the points that fred made about why they're doing it now i think in a way question is sidestepping are getting a minute video if indorsed as the head of the ticket so that if in the december elections the united russia party does much less well than before video forget the blame or growls and putin so he's trying to lift himself above the battle i think and in fact he may even be keep in reserve the option if united russia transparently but everybody says it will still win and not even having a very different prime minister in future saying well he didn't do well enough in the election we'll have to find somebody else that's very interesting adrian you going to want to jump in adrian but i think that's exactly right it is

a master stroke by putin once again he setting out sort of parliamentary politics just when it's getting difficult not just in terms of united russia but also in terms of the economy and society. ok it's apathy and if there's real votes you know this contend with the government pretty much already the presidential candidate as well it's very interesting to you know we're going to go national conversation we had earlier i mean coming back to the presidency right now when we look at international events going on i mean there's a political tsunami financial tsunami anomic tsunami going on around the world and here mr putin is going to come back into the fray i mean is it something that he thinks he feels is necessary to do because that he has a trusted circle around him that he's built up over the years i mean it you know coming back into having the country in these times is it's maybe a noble idea but it could be difficult as well i think that what we saw pretty clearly displayed at the united russia congress was that. putin is very much a prisoner of the system he built he did build it there are

a lot of accomplishments to that system it restored stability in this country after a really disastrous decade. he brought in a semblance of law and order. and you know whether it was high oil prices or not he also found ways of redistributing income. creating infrastructure projects so a lot can be said for that decade and the stabilization that that brought in but he also you know it is the nature of this kind of power system that you surround yourself with groups and supporters and and people who who do execute orders also have their piece of the pie and they depend on you it's personal relationships that kind of it's often called planned relations but they are of vital importance in the sense that it's all right but i mean the thing we heard today if the car if

i go to jonathan here. mr putin was made it very clear that he wanted a list of a bit of comeback as prime minister with a new team now maybe kind of reading the tea. he leaves there mr me a bit of whole modernisation program will probably continue only as prime minister so some of the objectives that we saw that mr may benefit a lot of people in the west had hoped for maybe maybe too much will because they prefer the softer touch of mr medvedev over mr putin but there is an obvious indication that the country has to continue modernizing it cannot continue with the same kind of political system and economic approach that it has had for the last decade. modernizing what have been modernizing the political system there is going to be a version of the with the party to governors the raising of the threshold where they're not going to say it says it's not it's not what you meant it was governor is saying that's a that's a mistake that actually they are confirmed through local committees in each region but i allot of people would say that that was necessary to keep the country

together that's part kartik part of the process of keeping the state sovereign what do you think about that adrian i mean there where is the next step here i mean or these are just treading water because well mr medvedev was talking about liberalizing the the political system or having more representative having parties more representative by lowing the election threshold you think that's going to continue. well i think we have to wait and see brian rather skeptical the trouble is that putin's policies for ten years or so have been entirely statist he doesn't trust independent businesses and he doesn't trust civil society i think president did was trying to strengthen private business the rule of law and civil society but of course he had not enough room of maneuver he didn't have enough power to implement this and so i think we're heading back to states the troublous state capitalism doesn't work much better than free market capitalism well free market capitalism isn't doing very well in the west either late and i

suppose it's going to be continued debate on how much role the state does play in here and there but there is there is there needs to be more competition here just one of the reasons why they're having this privatization drive i don't know if it's going to be postponed now because of the turbulence outside but still breaking up some of the monopolies here this is still our schedule i suppose so but i think that modernization of the political system as jonathan said is a crucial thing you know democracy isn't just a pretty face system ensuring that people who come up are have some kind of public cred they have to be able to muscle their way into power to some legitimate system and we've seen this narrowed to such an extent that in the long run i think it's dysfunctional i don't want to say it's soviet like or something like that but if we're looking at twelve more years of this. stability can can turn into real stagnation because of you know you're going to go

to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on russian politics today with r.t. . more news today violence is once again flared up the phillies are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operations a road that led mums.

to be soon which bryson. evolves from phones to. his phone starts on t.v. dot com. mum can. still. come up to the. mum. welcome back to crossfire computer o'dell to my joy talking about the return of vladimir putin to the presidency. mum came and stood. ok jonathan if i can start off with you again how do you think the international community is going to see this the return of putin presidency because i said as i pointed out earlier in the program the west seemed

to like the lighter touch of mr medvedev what do you think about that. well you know i think they all see this as basically continuity but i mean i think the disappointing thing really is that russia is still very reactive in its foreign policy i mean under yeltsin it was very much during the west's bidding and certainly under putin it's now become less predictable and more nationalistic and that's fine from the russian point of view but they're still negative i think on syria they don't want sanctions on iran they're want sanctions but they're not really taking initiatives what do you do about iran what do you do about syria on the palestinian issue which is so popular this week why wasn't there russia didn't take a strong initiative and said they really support the palestinians and it's time to grow i don't know jonathan the russians in place of turning this palestinians for twenty years in the new russia very very firmly mr medvedev even went to ramallah and said that he supports statehood that was a few months ago i would say russia's foreign policy is extremely you in fact is very very conservative not reactive what do you think about that adrian do you

think that the in the capitals of europe they're going to be happy to see mr putin back what you think about mr hope maybe i don't know for mr obama is going to be back in office what you think. well very much touted because they lasting impression. gave when he was last president was the security speech in munich in two thousand and seven when he was very blunt. not only. denounced american in germany but also essentially brand of the rest of europe is pretty much useless so i don't know we maybe that was a pretty good description i mean how things are played out right here and i was the munich conference i remember it extremely well i'd like to point out to my viewers that it was very well received here in russia is that russia will have its own foreign policy and not kowtow to the united states and other powers of united nations is the kind of reaction what you said earlier jonathan a lot of people in russia do not like how the libyan resolution was played out where you can just do whatever you want to abuse international law and still we saw

a very strong strong support for the palestinians and if that irritates western powers and so be it that's russia's foreign policy what do you think right i don't think they'll be any changes in russian foreign policy i think there has been the continuous. growth in russia's self-confidence on the world stage. i think they could be more they could use the weight that they have caught more coherently but i also don't think they'll be major problems with people accepting another putin presidency i think we more or less expected it all along and predictable he's not a particularly capricious person or given to excesses he sticks to his script. and that's awfully important in a system where so much power is invested in one personality so important domestically to both putin that he is this normal quarter to me and a fairly predictable moderate sort of character. now i think that i'm not sure

that's true fred's going to be about yeah if you think about international trade or you think about cooperation with the you. even bilateral relations i mean you. a lot of politicians don't. implement prachi policies i think can be problematic but he's also you know more than a streak and i don't think wrong said eighth fairly predictable and reliable. if you look at compare putin with medvedev i mean look at the ga ga ga's aggression against south of thirty i mean we still saw a lot of continuity in russian foreign policy putin would have done exactly the same thing i find a huge honor in which it might have gone further. or that's interesting i thought i'd better go in there jonathan what do you think about if you think that. someone like mr saakashvili is going to be worried again because or we look at politics in ukraine i mean if if adrian is right which i disagree with very strongly i think there's been a continuity from putin through made good if you will probably see it again also with putin because russia's national interest don't change even if the president

changed his. no i agree with that i think there will be many continuity and i think russia's relations with georgia really present and i'm very committed clear majority made it clear that as long as saakashvili is there still in charge in georgia there can be no real breakthrough and warming up of relations on ukraine of course since the engine car year or so ago they're very happy with what's going on in ukraine that's not true anymore in your point the issue of ukraine joining the navy and joining nato has been kicked right into the long grass since that's not going to happen soon fred what do you if you wouldn't you want to you know i just think the main thing that will happen is what the process and see happening in our brains right now is we're all going to become a lot more cynical about the nature of the russian power system you know what we saw at the united russia call congress we're going to friday night going what do you want all this this is i mean the popularity now i would i would grant you i grant everyone on the panel is that there are two major political figures in this

country ok my kids are not that's what we've gotten and the constitution has not been circumvented i mean the man's name is going to be on the ballot and you know what most people are going to vote for him so i mean where do you where do you how do you balance cynicism versus popularised i asked fred first ok first go ahead go for the first peter i lived five years in the soviet union and i didn't see anything quite completely different. in in in this process really what we see is the ballot being narrow real choices you can if there are marginal and you don't have to feel the choices you are or are eliminated long before the ballots are printed and even that spectrum of kind of what i call potemkin choices or are narrowing and this is not a good thing for the long term health of respectable with the population thinks in the electorate but i mean explain i'm sorry but that's the battles of a sort i'm sorry but it's the fact that right up until the collapse of the soviet

union you could be nobody voted for going to push off nobody voted for brezhnev people who i knew we had referee in the over here i mean i'm going to continue to go ok great adrian go ahead jump in. well putin used to pride themselves for having established a system that stable and a constitution that's respect but now in a single move he's essentially undermined by returning after four years if you were serious about continuity and stability he would have allowed president to get us to run again and even if people say personnel there's not so much it's about the institutions now we have a president who's going to be leading the united russia party in the parliamentary elections this is not just growing the boundaries this is now in fact to be undermining the institutions guaranteed by the constitution not necessarily by the other people and that's john of the you know for him to hedge and then go to the other part of the sixty ordinary is the guy the majority of for corruption and members of his party i mean yes you must start building up a multi-party system and that means people must stand as

a representative to be members of it to meetings not just once every four years but all the time regularly try to build up mobilize you know just above the party is the old czarist model basically isn't it and unfortunately you know some do the same thing when he was there he always said oh i mean at the same time gentlemen you do you know and you can agree or disagree for you should be part of the party but there is a multi-party system here i mean you can go to the communist if you want to ok you can vote yet in the right is ok there is a choice but that's the only that's the only party that's not the plan on the kremlin the fact is all other parties depend in some ways on the kremlin and what you really need in addition to a multi-party system is strong institution across the country russia has a strong central state and incredibly weak institutions in the rest of the country those need to be strengthened. here here's the thing about the last two years under madrid of. introduced a different tone and sometimes even subtly he was talking differently and he gave

rise to a lot of hopes and you know even in the bureaucracy in academia camps for him over the last couple of years especially putin made bit of even if it was assured from the story. a lot of people took it seriously and started to express different opinions according to their vision of who these two guys were right or wrong and you saw that there was. there are not not revolutionary i'm not talking about people in the street shouting i'm talking about within the mainstream of russian society there are different views of the way forward and the thing that has happened with the name of being proposed and put forward is that that's narrowed back to one. it's not necessarily a bad thing as i said i don't think he was a bad leader he had a lot of accomplishments it's just another twelve years of him that gives this signal not only to the russians that we should say would like to ask all of you

here as we wind up the program here first adrian do you think mr putin wants to come back or he has to come back because of the political environment that is so much attached associated with his time in politics wants to come back has to come back yet. i think it's both because he's the president of the system but he clearly also has not been able to distract himself and to make room for something else so he depends on the support of groups just as those groups that had on him as an arbiter frenemy of the last word here well i don't know you know i as i said putin's a keep a bald guy and he also knows the problems of the country. is he if he gets another six year term and i think we know he will will he use that to make the changes i mean this is the basic point this country really needs some departure put in stability was fine it's. but people are getting impatient you know i hear it all around they want change putin must know that so you know even from within that

system to encourage growth and civil society to bring in some evolutionary democratic reforms and to make some economic changes this is within his power let's not let's not say he can't do it i suppose we have no choice but to wait and see that charge or do you feel he is the best thing we have any this program you're going to have to wait and see many things to get and i guess in london cambridge and here in the studio and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at the phoenix i'm a member of. the k.k.k. . want to. see twenty years ago the largest country in the history of the.

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