historical hotels of escape culture in the city salutes and sky calls malls milla may do as a good i'm told from the strip for mr tropicana hutto. and this is all seeing this is our main news this hour prime minister vladimir putin announces his to run for the russian president been printed by the man in office now dmitri medvedev president medvedev also revealed his lead become trees ruling party united russia in december the to mention elections and become the new prime minister should have been enough wilde's around the. country right now on the main news story here in moscow in the latest edition of because of those debates. that's in just about.

it. started. to sink in. well come across the guy people about russia's great political parlor game has come to an end president dmitry medvedev announced he would support but a mere putin scared to see 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 carry 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 capps in cambridge he's a lecturer in politics of 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 that means you can jump in anytime you want but first marcia 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 a set to run for president in two thousand and twelve election his candidacy endorsed of the united russia party convention by incumbent president we think into so you're going to get a lesson here if in 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 and government i believe it would be right for the congress to support the candidacy of law to be a person 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. i'd like to express my gratitude to you for supporting my candidacy to run for president it's a great honor the age you put on has already served two terms as president. the formative took over the job in two thousand and eight address in saturday's convention puts it in terms that just take over the role as the next prime minister if the party performs well in parliamentary elections in december if you're going to. mention elections coming in i would 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 matthew peter thank you very much for that marcia first i'd like to go to jonathan any surprises for you there to mr big that it is

indorsed prime minister putin to succeed him you know there's no surprise at all it was always assumed this would happen and i think it is actually confirmed that this was the plan already from a long time back i think the main disappointment will be with the madrid video 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 pushing this sergeant he could carry on as president well that's obviously not going to happen well. adrian about that well it will heal 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 the ruling time can preserve that support is already crumbling and they need to do more than just swap jobs well i mean support is a support for whom for united russia or for. putin. well for united said

russia as a party but also for modernization there is clear desire thought up but the implementation has been extremely slow and only very partial so the 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 that you think this is more about the parliamentary election this is the timing of it all because we all knew it was because i started out the program this is 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 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 putin year usually had 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 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 that's the system that it dominates represents there is 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 need craft maybe for the elections

but but frankly. i think i mean we. it's not the united russia we in the world actions i think the number to watch is water curve yes to any of that 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 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 levant 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 to come back to the one of the points that fred made about why they're doing it now i think in a way pushing the sidestepping bar getting government very different course as the head of the take it so that if in the december elections the united russia party does not less well than before madrid you forget the blame of girls and putin so

he's trying to lift himself above the castle i think in fact he may even be keep in reserve the option if united russia does badly but everybody says it will still win but not even having with your first prime minister in future saying well he didn't do well enough in the election we'll have to find somebody else it's very interesting adrian go ahead you want to jump in avery well 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 is. you know this contend with the government ready to presidential candidate as well it's very interesting to you know we're going to make 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 konami tsunami going on around the world and here mr putin is going to come back into the fray i mean this is 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 putin 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 of 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 be right i mean the thing we haven't heard today if the car if i go to jonathan here. mr putin was made it very clear that he want to day is to be a bit of come back as prime minister with a new team now maybe kind of reading the tea. he leaves there mr mid bit of whole modernisation program will probably continue only as prime minister so some of the objectives that we saw that mr meant better that a lot of people in the west had hoped for maybe maybe too much or 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 there's going to be a version of the with the party to governors the raising of the threshold where they're not in the process is it's not it's not appointment of governors that's and 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 do you think about that adrian i mean. 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 lowering the election threshold you think that's going to continue. well i think we have to wait and see a lot of skeptical the trouble is that it's 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're heading back to states as i'm traveling 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 but there's a very there is there needs to be more competition here in this is one of the reasons why they're having this problem is they should drive i don't know if it's going to be postponed because of the turbulence outside but still breaking up some of the monopolies or this is still on our schedule i suppose so but i think that modernization of the political system as jonathan said is a crucial thing you know mark receive isn't just a pretty face system ensuring that the people who come up are have some

kind of public credit they have to be able to muscle their way into power through some legitimate system and we've seen this narrowed to such an extent that in the long run i think it's just one question i don't want to say it's soviet light or something like that but if we're looking at twelve more years of this. this conference stag stability can turn into real stagnation. 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. . in the faraway land. where human life is ruined by nature. the distant

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wealthy british scientists. on the tireless. market why not come to find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cars are there are no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on our g. . od the company soon to. come up the phone to. the pledge. welcome back to crossfire i'm people delta mind you were talking about the return of vladimir putin to the presidency good luck taken

against saddam. 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 will 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 doing 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 don't 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 topical this week why wasn't there russia didn't take a strong initiative and say they really support the palestinians and it's time to

break i don't know john i think the russians embrace of turning this how a skinny ends 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 can 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 do you think. well very much touted because the lasting impression that putin 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. denounced american in germany but also essentially branded the rest of europe is pretty much useless so i don't know where you gave 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 and i did point out to my viewers that it was it was 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 by 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 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 point and presidency i think we more or less expected it 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 a system where so much power is invested in one personality important domestically to putin 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 or you think about cooperation with the you or even bilateral relations i mean. lots of politicians don't just implement traffic policies i think can be problematic but he's also you know more than the history and i don't think one could set a fairly predictable and reliable and i went well if you look at compare putin with made better of i mean look at the ga ga ga's aggression against south of seti i mean we still saw a lot of continuity in russian foreign policy putin would have done exactly the same thing if i go to you jonathan which it might have gone further. or the that's

interesting i say hypothetical want to jonathan what do you think about it 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 very even we'll probably see it again also with putin because russia's national interests don't change even if the president changes. no i agree with that i think there will be many calls in your to you know i think russia's relations with georgia really present and very for made it clear majority made it clear that as long as saakashvili is there still in charge and georgia there can be no real breakthrough and warming up of relations on ukraine of course since the injured power a 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 into the long grass it's not going to happen soon fred what do you do you wouldn't 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 you know the russian congress was doing a pretty nice thing what do you well this is i mean the popularity now i would i would keep 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 going to 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 narrowed real choices even if they're marginal and you don't have to vote real choices who 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 irrespective of what the population thinks of the electorate but. i need to explain a little sorry but that's the database or i'm sorry but it's the fact that right up until the collapse of the soviet union you could even you know people voted for it got a bunch of nobody voted for brezhnev a boy you know a new a referee in the over here to be kind of public opinion 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 that by returning after four years if you were serious about continued instability he would have allowed president bashir is to run again and even if people say personnel there's not so much it's about the institutions now we had a president who's going to be leading the united 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 but you know that's kind of you know for him to have jonathan go the other part of this extraordinary is the guy the majority of corporate and members of this party i mean yes you must start building up a multi-party system and that means people must stand as a representative of the party members or 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 party is the old czarist model of basically isn't it and unfortunately you're going to the same thing when he was there he always said oh i mean at the same time gentlemen maybe 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 go 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 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 few years under madrid of. introduced a different tone and sometimes even the look he was talking differently and then he he 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 in medvedev 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 or not likable 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 there are back to

what. and 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 insisted another twelve years of him gives this signal not only to the 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 attached associated with his time in politics wants to come back has to come back. 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 are paid on him as an ah that's a friend of your last word here well i don't know you know i as i said clintons are capable guy and he also knows the problems of the country. 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 think. they want change and 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 our draft. is a mistake we believe any this program you're going to 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 r.t. see you next time and remember prostate. cancer.