this is our do you want from moscow breaking news this hour nato troops used tear gas to disperse crowds of serbs refusing to dismantle barricades along possibles northern border as tensions flare up again troops removed the roadblocks that have been mounted since the summer to block qassam authorities from controlling the serve dominated area. moscow warns it could deploy missiles on the borders of the e.u. and pull out of its nuclear arms cuts deal with the u.s. if washington pursues its the fans shield in europe by the white house as

a will go ahead with its plans. thousands of the final gyptian step up their demands for an answer to the country's military rule with live bullets having been fired a crowd of people remain in tahrir square following six days on the dress. those are the off stories i'll be back at the top of the hour with more next though we bring you the spotlight show that aldred off where he interviews one of arsons leading auditions about next month's russian elections. oh for.

me to. hello again and welcome to spotlight the interview show on our street friend al green all day and for day we continue introducing you to the latest in russian politics the parliamentary election russia will take place on december fourth seven political parties are campaigning for the four hundred fifty seats of the parliament's lower chamber of the state to the fight is one more intriguing this year and it's the first time these are elected full five years instead of. as the campaign goes on you have an opportunity to hear from all of the

contestants and say my guest is surrogate talking to leaders i'll be looking into. the russians up lose not just the fleet oh it's a company it's also the name of the lead you could not see ya book in just like the gadgets become used to be prefixed as a positions itself as a pod you get to like strong's all over the can the full scope the same book you learn the good stick load you produce it. namesake enjoys four years ago in lost its representation in the state to. one of the oldest parties in post soviet russia yup local was founded in the early ninety's ninety's for many years it was headed by one of russia's most well known politicians grigori of linsky in ninety ninety also the widely discussed five hundred days program a plan for the transition not the u.s. the south to a free market economy all over the program was never implemented by one ski run for

the presidency twice he finished fourth in the ninety nine to six election won by yeltsin and he was third in two thousand when putin was elected over the years the yabloko party so was slumped in popularity in the nineteen ninety five stay do my election it gained as many as forty five seats in two thousand and three it's representation and they do much it wasn't down full of doubt the party made several attempts at forming coalitions with other woodrell movements but could never overcome differences with their potential partners in two thousand and eight sergei mutual he became doublecross a leader and his biggest challenge now is to get back into the state duma. hello mr mitrokhin welcome to spotlight there are first of all your party one of the oldest in russia sometimes called liberal sometimes social democratic sometimes

something else what about you how do you define its day our official positions. is a social liberal policy folks are not ignoring the party and social liberal vs exist in which of the world's prominent parties in which you compare yourself to those lights or there was a famous man living heart and made postwar germany one of the world's economic leaders because of he called himself a social liberal. you and i may know him but i'm afraid that most of our viewers are more familiar with the democrats the republicans the conservatives in the labor party and so on are used similar to any of those. in many ways we're similar to the liberals but we also have much in common with the labor party. by the way the liberals and the labor party in britain. regionally one party they were together for some time and shared the same views and then they could not agree on

some points. our ideology is a social market a social oriented market economy where anyone can make money of course except for those who can't financial reasons which of the european systems of governance do you like the most. wish one perhaps since you are clearly social market. no you have a social market same germany and in france to some extent. and european experience we're a party of european valley is. openly saying that. we believe the trash should go with europe. but if you see that russia should go with europe do you think the asian part of russia whatever is beyond the urals like say beery in the far east will people veer into they want to go to europe of course they do. voters who live in the far east you know i was there just recently they once our entire country. including the far east

europeans to take the europeans way. china closer to them is just one hour away from that area first of all china has a north or a terry in the gene pool china is a totally different civilization and culture. there is no way that china can be a model for russia but it should all right china. on the contrary there's a potential threat for russia not to partner by the way in order to prevent significant threats on the part of aggressive regimes in the east because it's not just china it's very important for russia to stand developing close cooperation with the e.u. and the us. such a powerful alliance of three centers of power will be able to face any threats from the east or from the south so you must be happy then look to russia is joining

the w t l with the w.t. always a slightly different matter than the miswire is the trash maybe joining the w c o prematurely our economies commodity driven non-committed to industries are not developing. some industries are just beginning to develop but by joining the w c o in haste if we can kill all that progress. before we join the w c o we should prepare our economy for it. has a special program it's called the land homes and roads. are just creating an internal source of economic growth and development that presently our source is located externally i mean prices for hydrocarbons this issue asian is very dangerous when the economic crisis breaks out in the west these prices will drop which means our revenues will drop to our economy isn't secure. but

the implementation of these land homes roads program would get this domestic process started generating demand. today demand for housing is immense we should take advantage of this in our economic policies for instance in the u.s. there is no demand for housing and it would be useless to develop a major housing construction program like the one you're going to suggest under this program people would receive plots strictly for this purpose for the purpose of building their houses and their. what they will be able to sell these plots the governments will provide infrastructure like roads utilities and so on that are. a part of our reserve funds could be used for that since we have touched upon other countries in their experience i'd like to ask you about foreign policy this is one

subject i asked all the parties about since r.t. his international audience is there anything you don't like about russia's foreign policy either really need your changes you'd like to make. russia. russia's current foreign policy sometimes. from teenage childish complex's we often take offense right now we aren't happy with the g q stone so we're due to workers from russia back to egypt is done but if and when the president says this is merely coincidence no one believes him this is immature behavior. you do have a point there however we have already mentioned that populist policies so real well in the run up to now election a lot of people in russia are actually welcoming what they see is the kremlin finally standing up for russian citizens who have been unlawfully convicted the way we see it it's a form of pressure on to take a stand well you know so little they would release the russian pilots.

but look if we take the little ink ok's for example they have employed a somewhat different approach in dealing with that standoff one of the foreign minister and its diplomats handle the case because it is much easier for russia to put pressure on to do to stand on london and indeed we have to resort to such. childish and ridiculous gestures where making a loving stock of ourselves for the whole world russia is often dominated by emotions and is foreign policy which is unacceptable our foreign policy is meant for domestic consumption not in the sense that it serves the interests of russian people but in the sense that it is intended to appease the people of russia. we flex their muscles sending our warships to the coast of south america which is a pointless waste of money. we often like to show how tough we are. this kind of

behavior has little or no effect on others at times beauty even has a negative impact. the message to lead is a way for us as leaders to improve their popularity and score some political points for the election this is not the way foreign policy should be handled on the other hand don't you agree that in soviet times the foreign policy was ideology based whoever said they were for socialism were our friends. over in the foreign policy has become more pragmatic when the deliver a putin trouble free country lee or dollar sign a package of trade or investment agreements. indeed our country's current policy has become more pragmatic in fact if we compare today's russia with so it's times some people would say and even we would admits that in some aspects our situation today's worse in some ways it is definitely better we have more freedom now including economic freedom which has effect. and are foreign policy making it more

pragmatic that high of a certain complex these persist sometimes russia still tends to act like a great empire with again the twee are no longer a six part of the world and of the new nations that have emerged around us are independent now sometimes we try talking to these nations as if they were still part of the russian empire sometimes we become angry like children. those a small nations and russia should be a self-sufficient strong nation that does not react to the slightest provocation from georgia or ukraine. your party has gone through all the election campaigns i think it's one of the oldest parties perhaps in the oldest but we are eighteen years old we are young just turned of age a month ago i guess only the liberal democrats or alter the pricing the communist party's older two is there anything special about the current campaign.

there are more appreciate it is to use the media. sometimes it costs a lot but as a whole we have a much much more air time than joining the past year election campaigns which is very good this gives us a real chance. leader of the russian democratic party. will be back shortly after a break so we'll continue this interview there will they. make.

download the official anti up location chobani phone on pod touch from the choose our. lunch on sea life on the go. video on demand keys mind comes an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the. welcome back to spotlight. just a reminder that my guest on the show today is. the leader of the russia party yabloko. mr mr arkin you just said eerie important thing you said that elections in

russia have become more liberal and democratic as a member of an opposition party you're seeing now you have more opportunities for campaigning. well actually i only mentioned one aspect of the can pain which is of course important yes but the president gave us a promise to give a promise to all the leaders of russian parties when we met in sort of that meeting we demanded broader access to media and also demanded equal conditions for non parliamentary parties because parliamentary parties have a special longer inseam them equal access to the media but this law does not apply to us so the president made this promise and this is actually happening today even though of course united russia is dominating all news programs all the two biggest television channels but at least we have an opportunity to take part in the debates and united russia is not taking part in debates the right by the way to listen looks rather strange studio side of the world went to a ruling party refuses to take poured into the us which i personally think that if

the ruling party in france or britain or czerny kharif used to participate in two beats during your campaign it would be doomed but in russia they're better off without the beats because i think they know what they're doing yes they're better off why is russian mentality different. can you imagine what it's like to hear all the carter's criticize united russia for what they've done over the past ten years . not a single person would stand that this would straight away make them look bad so i understand why they refused to take part in debates. all right you three all to get into this to do ninety thousand and three and two thousand and seven. what lessons have you learned and what makes you think this time will be different. with the lesson we learned was that we really have to monitor the voting process

more closely prior to the day of vote curing the vote and especially the counting process or all the nights for when the votes are there is why we're joining efforts with other parties in coaching our monitors. of course we need to monitor everything more thoroughly and i will give you just one example i think it has become internationally known where not a single ballot was cast for the part of the polling station where i voted together with my family. so you mean that there should have been at least four votes or so many more votes were discovered after the court had ordered a recount and that station united russia had ninety percent of the votes and zero but the polling stations where medvedev putin louche golf and other united russia party leaders voted the picture was very different you know in russia had thirty five percent of the vote had fifteen to seventeen percent sure that this is because

of those polling stations they simply didn't dare to touch the ballots so the lesson we learned just monitoring is crucial. because it may be even more votes but it's not easy. is an internationally known figure and he's the founder of your has been your leader for many years he left it all except to the parties the lessons of auckland two thousand and seven and now he's back why. personally i asked him if we could put his name of the top of our ballot but i travel a lot and meet a lot of people and people often ask me a way of linsky isn't what has happened to him what is he doing. we're missing him they say that's why decided to make such a move us part of the election campaign which many people see that russian politics needs a new thesis there is a lot of talk about that we want to see young thesis where are the people see this is on the on and on the other hand the party need a person like you lean political career is already in decline for naturally the

party needs a person like you glinsky is one of the leading economists in russia was appointed the leading cause of the council for economic reform reform and this way they show their high esteem for him when. the reason to single economist among our politicians. and the fact that our policy is such a strong economist is our obvious advantage for example it was he who prepared this land homes roads programme which i mentioned earlier. many parties bring new faces from the outside inviting famous artists and athletes are not likely to be involved in actual lawmaking in the state duma. as we are different and we want to make use of the advantage we have. means something different i don't know mystery

linsky very well maybe longer than you can and i just think that many people knew your lynn spears a person who simply can't. remember how many times he tried he field so people think somebody else should get a chance. know why the party has won several elections we give the helm. the elections are different now. it was a well known situation in two thousand and three when on the night after the election mr putin called mr your linsky to congratulate him on the fact that his party passed the five percent threshold and you were the. person. the morning it turned out. that nothing of the kind had happened to. you your party's golden age. intelligentsia was the bulk of your electorate. do something to eight year old was supposed to vote for ya block or. those for you

today. first of all liberal minded intelligences still there i travel a lot and i have recently been in will do a stock right on the street people approach me and say we have always voted for you why is your party not in the media now we can see that you are still there and will vote for you again these people are exactly from liberal minded intelligentsia where the time goes on of course and we are new supporters those are activists people whom we help by protecting them from being abused by bureaucrats who are also supported by businesses particularly smaller companies what's your take on today's young people i don't mean us of course although we may seem younger selves but those who are really young they've become more conformist as they have grown with putin was in power in this part of their life not of them seem to be happy with the current situation for our young people have been conformist for the past twenty years including the yeltsin era not so much and to yell sam now it's more

time to think well most of them are conformist but there are a bright young people if we recall the controversy with the recent visit of the president to the department of journalism of the moscow state university and other cases when students begin to speak out for their rights these are emerging elements of healthy noncom firmest that give us hope. so you mean there are about ten percent among the young people take for instance the youth branch of. where do they come from their students who came to us as they like our stance and their want to protest and to realise themselves on the streets and we let them do that see the right people. some very popular in three entry also have left your party. advanced and mitri where yasha why isn't because your party is no longer in the duma. you know we have an ideology of our own. all those departures should be assessed

accordingly. and have on scale left because they felt they had to make it into the parliament well yeah look it was an opposition party. on the left due to our differences in ethnic problems. he declared he supported the nationalist policy which is unacceptable for yabloko in any form of nationalism is like a time bomb under a country. boy as for yashin l.f. already killed soon we have many claims. that among other things due to what was going on in the ninety's all the departures just mean yeah because they distinct ideology still those who were popular figures and it's a loss for your party but yes along with it comes to choose between persons and principles which is the latter you find

a standard technicalities of the russian electoral system correctly in case your party doesn't get into the duma all the birds that were cast for it will be proportional and distributed among those who have qualified because right as a result when i vote for you i'm risking that my vote will be passed over to united russia right. that's not quite so if according to the new rules we get five percent then one person will become a member of parliament well it's a loss of course to a certain extent you see when united russia has a constitutional majority or a simple majority it does not matter whether other parties get more a few of us they will all together not be able to influence anything and in your position faction will have more ways to influence things. many people in russia think their opposition parties should unite and when naive the leaders ask why

can't you all unite people usually. they say it's because of your look is a position. not quite so we did welcome everybody to join your. cricket but some of them have different views about the one thousand nine hundred for instance. we might not have agreed with them and squabbling we think of the country when the wrong way but we are ready to get united with you you're welcome to the party defend your position to cost in the election of the chairman and other officials in the party bring your supporters to van they replied first introduced for chairman posts. and after that all talk and would mean suicides and schizophrenia for a party. so it's not a proper complaint against us shows a way towards unification of civic and political forces by creating factions inside

our party where the only party to do this as a result we have green russia who came to our surpassing your field to get registered then we have the former pensioners party we have the women's faction a faction of interpreters young people human rights and champions we know the whole civil society around us for any democratic forces there is a convenient way of interacting both with. and with each other. they have their own ambitions and refused to do that it's possible thank you very much and good luck thank you thank you very much for being with us in just a reminder that my guest today was city leaders of the russian democratic party. and their separate out. we'll get back to more common cause go on in the bush a little web page typed in a. kick

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