hello dan this is r.t. our main headlines this up to our main headline i should say this our prime minister vladimir putin announces he's to run for the russian president seen twenty two hour binds by the man in office now dmitry medvedev present preventive also revealed he leaves the country's ruling party united russia in december parliamentary elections and become the new prime minister should it when enough votes and. right now more on the main news story here in moscow and the latest edition of people of ours debate show crosstalk.

welcome across the time people of russia's great political parlor game has come to an end president dmitry medvedev announced he would support but i mean putin's candidates to succeed him in next year's presidential poll was this the plan all along was a good idea and was what is called the tandem can it continue to work. to

cross talk 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 he's a lecturer in politics at the university of kent and in london and across the jonathan steele he is the international affairs commentator for the guardian all right gentlemen this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want but first marshall want to walk us through about what happened at united russia's convention that's right here the guessing game is officially over prime minister vladimir putin is set 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 don't put it a lodging you're given the proposal to have the electoral lists of the party united russia and to do some party work on condition of good performance in the parliamentary elections and my readiness for practical work and government i believe it would be right for the congress to support the candidacy of flaunting your consume not in the presidential election the announcement and speculation

about the trajectory of russians election cycle and reassures russians partners around the world concerned with political risk for the pleasure i'd like to express my gratitude to you for supporting my candidacy to run for president it's a great honor of good will may choose clinton has already served two terms as president. formative took over the job in two thousand and eight address in saturday's convention putin in terms of just get of take over the role as the next prime minister if the party performs well in parliament or elections in december if you but you didn't but it's. coming in i'd like to ask russian citizens to support you know it's a question party we can meet you. know 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

first i'd like to go to jonathan any surprises for you there to mr big very busy doorstep of prime minister putin to succeed him. there's no surprise at all it was always assumed that this would happen but i think it is actually confirmed so this was the plan already from a long time back i think the main disappointment will be was originally dangerous because he had shown in the last few months that he was actually rather enjoying being president and still hoped that there might be some change of plan. sergeant who 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 think by just changing positions they're ruling tandem can preserve that support is already crumbling and they need to do more than just swap jobs well i mean support is the support for whom for

a united russia or for. well for united said russia as a party but also for modernization there is clear desire for that but implementation has been extremely slow and only very partial so the question is will president hu's in the future president putin give the government any real power to implement policies that stamp out corruption it's not looking like that ok fred. you're we talked earlier you're not surprised at all that you think this is more about the parliamentary election this is the timing of it all because we all knew it well i guess 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 win and really inflate their numbers because going into the election in december they don't have the same kind of straight to be used to i i frankly don't know why they decided to do this now the script of the putin 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 people higher up can understand. so i guess it's clear it is clear to everybody that united russia is in 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 and represents there is a clear palpable disaffection creeping in it's not rebellious. it's not really loud 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 for

the duma elections but it frankly. i think that the main way. it's not with russia what we did were lections i think the number to watch is voter turnout yes they have 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 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 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 i think come back to the one of the points that fred made about why they're doing it now i think in a way to sidestepping are getting a gauge of indorsed as the head of the ticket so that if in the december elections the united russia party does much less well than before major forget the brainwork

rather than clinton so he's trying to lift himself above the battle i think and if i can may even be keeping in reserve the option if united russia does badly but everybody says it will still win we're 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 want to jump in. but i think that's exactly right it is a master stroke by putin once again he's getting out of parliamentary politics just when it's getting difficult it's not just in terms of you know it's in russia but also in terms of the economy and society. ok is apathy and if there's real votes you know this contend with the government and we're ready to presidential candidates well it's very interesting to me you know we again going back to a 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 canonic 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. 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 and so a lot can be said for that point and decade and the stabilization that it 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 the kind of it's often called planned relations but they are of vital importance and this is going to italy right now i mean the thing even heard today if because if i go to jonathan here. mr putin was made it very clear that he wanted a system in better come back as prime minister with a new team now maybe kind of reading the tea. he leaves there mr made videos whole modernisation program will probably continue only as prime minister so some of the objectives that we saw that mr mandela did a lot of people in the west had hoped for maybe maybe too much or because they prefer the softer touch of mr mcbride over mr putin but there is an obvious indication that become tree 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 governors the raising of the threshold where there are not in the sense it's not it's not what you meant to because there is i think that's a that's a myth 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 if there where is the next step here i mean or that is 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 blowing 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 presently it 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 have him back to state says i'm a 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 continue debate on how much role the state does play in here and there are good there is there is there needs to be more competition here in this 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 monopoly service is still on schedule i suppose so but i think that water in isolation 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 kred they have to be able to muscle their way into power so 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 turn into real stagnation because of you know you're going to get a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on russian politics today with r.t. . if you. think it's. in the far away line. where human life is ruined by nature. the distant

past of planet earth is scarcely preserved by the poor. animals lie hidden in the deep permafrost. and for those who deal with them restored times are still not for. this is a city. of about one hundred ninety thousand people we had eighty five thousand people working for general motors. or a job that depended on general motors. general motors is if it's not relation to you it might be your neighbor or somebody you knew it was kind of family run business myself i'm third generation my father was working there and you have a lot of two three and four generation families their first let's understand it is this is it doesn't work. and he said. it is gone.

into work. i think for a long time this notion america that bigger was better was simply an undisputed fact in the twenty first century smarter it's going to get better general motors simply became too large for their own good and so many brands the p. couldn't even keep up with they just basically became a dinosaur. welcome back to crossfire can people to mind you we're talking about the return of vladimir putin to the presidency.

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 a 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 no i think they will see this is basically continuity but i mean i think the disappointing thing really is that russia is still very reactive and 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 that i'm on sanctions on iran that they're not 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 topical this week why wasn't the russia didn't take a strong initiative and say they really support the palestinians and it's time to

grow i don't know jonathan directions in place of turning the 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 policies extremely well in fact is very can say to a very conservative now reacted what do you think about that age range you think that the in the capitals of europe they're going to be happy to see mr putin back when you think about mr maybe i don't know for mr obama is going to be back in office what do you think. well very much doubt because they lost a compression. gave when he was the last president was the security speech in munich in two thousand and seven when he was very blunt. not only. the nouns to american a gemini but also essentially brand of the rest of europe is pretty much useless so i don't know maybe that was a pretty good description i mean how things are played out right here i was the munich conference i remember it extremely well i like to point out to my viewers that it was it is it could be 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 the united nations is the kind of react to 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 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 that there has been a continuous. growth in russia's self-confidence on the world stage. i think they could be more they could use the weight they've got more coherently but i also don't think they'll be major problems with people accepting another pupil presidency i think we more or less expected all along and putin is predictable he's not a particularly capricious person or given to excesses he sticks to his script.

and that's awfully important in the system where so much power is invested in one personality important domestic lead to pretend that he is this known quantity and a fairly predictable moderate sort of character. no i think i'm not sure that's true fred's going to be about yeah if you think about international trade oh you think about cooperation with the you. even bilateral relations i mean you. a lot of politicians don't just intel and progressive policies i think can be problematic but she's also you know more than the streak and i don't think one could set a fairly predictable and reliable but i'll wait wait if you look at compare putin with medvedev i mean look at the ga ga ga's aggression in 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 only a huge honor in which it might have gone further. or that's interesting about how

to go in there jonathan what do you think about it 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 adrian is right which i disagree with very strongly i think there's been a continuity from putin through made very even we'll probably see it again also with putin because russia's national interest 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 of made it clear. as long as they're still in charge in georgia there can be no real breakthrough and to a woman 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 night and joining nato has been kicked right into the long grass it's just not going to happen soon fred when you want to you know i just think the main thing that will happen is what the process can 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 and call greece where you know if everybody's doing what do you well it is this is i mean the popularity now i would i would get grant you i grant everyone on the panel is that there are two major political figures in this country ok and like it or 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 spread first ok first go ahead go through 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 narrowed real choices you can if they're marginal and you don't have to vote usually since 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 the respectable what the population thinks of the electorate but. i mean explain i'm sorry but it'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 even nobody voted for it got a bunch of nobody voted for president label you a new a referee in the over here and i do believe i'm going to give me an ok good adrian go ahead jump in. well putin used to pride in south for having established a system that's stable and a constitution that's respect but now in a single move he's essentially undermined that by returning after four years if you were serious about continuity and stability he would have allowed president you'd have to run again and even if people say because now there's not so much it's about institutions now we have a president who's going to be leading the united russia party in the parliamentary elections this is not just throwing the boundaries this is now in fact to be

undermining the institutions guaranteed by the constitution not necessarily going to other people going to germany europe or into some hedge and i think the other point of six strong is the right the majority are for pushing the members of this party i mean yes you must establish holding up a multi-party system and that means people must stand as a representative part of your members over to attend meetings not just once every four years but all the time regularly try to build up mobilize you know just to have be above the parts years the old czarist model basically isn't it and unfortunately you're going to the same thing when he was there he always said oh i mean this is a time gentlemen even 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 vote for the communist if you want to ok you can vote yes on 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 that penned 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 an 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 a little bit of. introduced a different tone and sometimes even a little he was talking differently and let the people rise to a lot of hopes and you know even in the bureaucracy and in academia camps formed over the last couple of years especially. 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 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 proof and being proposed and put forward is that that's their road back to what.

it's not necessarily a bad thing as they said i i don't think he was a bad leader he had a lot of accomplishments and says that another twelve years of him that gives this signal not only to some russians they 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 of associated with his time in politics wants to come back has to come back i think it . i think it's both because he's a prisoner 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 are capable 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 mean

a change and this is the basic point this country really needs some departure put in stability was why it's. but people are are getting impatient you know i hear it all around they want changes putin must know that so you know even from within that system to encourage the growth of 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 will do he said ok if there's anything we have any this program here we have to wait and see many things to get to my guest today in london cambridge and here in the studio and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember rostock.

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