now five thirty pm here in the russian capital you're watching the headlines now protesters in egypt told depositions on cairo's revolutionary tahrir square which now takes a welcome breath after yet another night of heavy clashes meanwhile the arab league is actually meeting in cairo but local an arrest is not on the agenda the focus is on syria and the imposition of new sanctions. ethnic tensions flare once again in breakaway cause of when nato soldiers used tear gas against local serbs trying to

stop their barricades being dismantled troops in riot gear attempting to remove a concrete barrier while later on wednesday. and moscow stresses it's not about to stop the reset of ties with the u.s. but will hold nuclear disarmament and deploy rockets to its borders if washington establishes its missile defense shield in europe and u.s. meantime says it will not refute the program. because of the headlines here are. all going off and diffuse one of russia's leading politicians ahead of next month's elections spotlight is now. well for the. mayor and more mouths to feed but where will the food come from can science provide the answers for the future of under the microscope if we've got the

future covered. hello yanna welcome to spotlight the interview show our team from calgary and today 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 program of the fifteen seats of the parliament slower chamber the state to the fight is way more intriguing this year and it's the first time these are elected for 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 to turkey and leader of the doubt the. russians was not

just a meet or tech company it's also the demeanor of a political party ya block and just like the gadgets he used to play prefixed as it positions itself as a part you but to actually i will but it can not full stop the same popularity is to clomid you producing name sake enjoys four years ago when lost its representation of the state to. one of the only state parties in the post soviet russia was founded in the in a nine to ninety's for many years it was headed by one of russia's most well known politicians gregorian philine ski in one thousand nine hundred ninety two widely discussed five hundred days program a plan for the true zeeshan of the us the south to a free market economy and a love of the program was never implemented the one ski ran 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. when was elected over the years party so once a month in popularity in the one nine hundred ninety five speed to my election it gained as many as forty five seats in two thousand and three its representation in the duma was a town feel about the party made several attempts at forming coalitions with other woodrell movements but could never overcome differences with their counsel. in two thousand and eight same gamey true he became the albuquerque reader and his biggest challenge now is to get back into the state duma. hello mr mitrokhin welcome to spotlight there were 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. artificial positions. as

a social liberal policy in the party and social liberal vs which of the world's prominent parties would you compare yourself to. there was a famous man living heart and made post-war germany one of the world's economic leaders. 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 you somewhere to any of those. in many ways similar to the liberals but we also have much in common with the labor policy experts and by the way the liberals and the labor party in britain everybody who originally one party when you they were together for some time and shared the same views and then they cannot agree on some points what are ideology as a social markets a social oriented market economy where anyone can make money if it goes except for

those. so you can't work financial reasons which of the european systems of governance do you like the most just wish one perhaps since you like the social market you know 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 say that. we believe the trasher should go with europe. but if you see that russia should go with your or do you think the asian part of russia whatever is beyond the urals like say beery in the far east will people veer a ball for you and soon they want to go with europe of course they do. not there are voters who live in the far east you know i was there just recently they once there are entire country. including the far east. to take the european way

peacekeeper. china closer to them as just one hour away from their area first of all china has the north or exactly in the gene china is a totally different civilization and culture. there is no way no china can be a model for russia but it should all right china on the contrary it is a potential threat for usha not a partner by the way in order to prevent significant threats on the parts of aggressive regimes in the east because it's not just china it's very important for us to stand developing close cooperation with the e.u. and the us. to such a powerful alliance of three centers of power that we will be able to face any threats from the eastern or from the south so you must be happy then that russia is joining the w t l with. the w.t. always a slightly different matter. the trash maybe joining the. w t o prematurely our

economy's commodity driven noncom order to industries are not developing. some industries are just beginning to develop but by joining the w c o in haste we can kill all that progress. before we join the w t o we should prepare our economy for it. has a special program it's called land homes and roads. are just creating an internal source of economic growth and development it is 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 so these prices will drop which means our revenues will drop to our economy isn't secure. but the implementation of these land terms 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 suggests under this program people would receive plots strictly for this purpose for the purpose of building their houses their. what i mean 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. has an international audience is there anything you don't like about russia's foreign policy either

a knee jerk changes you'd like to make. russia's current foreign policy sometimes sterns from teenage child is complex is that we often take offense right now we aren't happy with the g q stone so we're deporting migrant workers from russia back to georgia is done but is there 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 as the kremlin finally stepping 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 that they would release the russian pilots. but look if we take a little ngo case for example that they have employed

a somewhat different approach in dealing with that standoff. the foreign ministry and its diplomats handle the case because it is much easier for russia to put pressure on to keep you standing on london and indeed we have to resort to such a thing taisha is childish and ridiculous gestures we're making a lot of ourselves for the whole world russia is often dominated by emotions and is foreign policy which is unacceptable that our foreign policy is meant for domestic consumption and 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 it's good we flex our 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 it even has a negative impact. as

a way for us as leaders to improve their popularity and score some political points for the election but this is not the way foreign policy should be handled i put on the other hand don't you agree that in the soviet times before him policy was ideology based whoever said they were for socialism were our friends now however in the foreign policy has become more pragmatic when to deliver a putin travel to the country lee would always 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 but in some ways it is definitely better we have more freedom now including economic freedom which has affected. and our foreign policy making it more pragmatic of a certain conflict sees persist sometimes russia still tends to act like

a great empire with again between are no longer a sixth 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. as are those a small nations and russia should be a self-sufficient strong nation that is 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 we are eighteen years old we are young just turned of age a month ago and yes only the liberal democrats are older i think the communist party's older two is there anything special about the current campaign. there are more of his you need to see use the media. sometimes it costs

a lot but as a whole we have much much more air time than jury in 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 great group continues and from there we'll be able. to . make. emission free. education free clothes for churches free. range from and three. three. three. three broadcast quality video for your media projects discreetly done to our teeth dot com. wealthy british style stock.

markets. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's culture the no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kaiser report. welcome back to spotlight in just a reminder that my guest on the show today is simply who's the leader of the russian democratic party yabloko. mr mitrokhin you just said it nearing important things you said that elections in russia have become more liberal and democratic as

a member of an opposition party you're saying that now you have more opportunities for campaigning well actually i only mentioned one aspect of the contain which is of course important yes but the president gave us a promise he gave a promise to all the leaders of russian parties when we met insults and that's missing we demanded broader access to media else demanded equal conditions for non-parliamentary part is because parliamentary parties have a special logo and seem them equal access to the media but this law does not have. lied 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 on the two biggest television channels but at least we haven't seen since to take part in the debates united russia is not taking part in the wreath right there where you can this looks rather strange studio to world when a ruling party refuses to take according to the us which i personally think that if

the ruling party in france britain or germany or refused to participate in debates during your campaign it would be doomed but in russia they're better off without debates because i think they know what they're doing yes they're better off why is russian intelligence different. can you imagine what it's like to hear all the qualities criticizing knighted russia for what they've done over the past ten years . not a single person would stand that this would straightaway make them look bad so i understand why they refused to take part in debates. all right you think you will to get into this day 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 one 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 on the nights following the vote that is why we are joining efforts with other parties and 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 when not a single ballot was cast for the i look at 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 got zero. polling stations where medvedev 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 this is because of those polling stations

they simply didn't dare to touch the ballots so the lesson we learned is that monitoring is crucial. because it means even more votes but it's not easy. is an internationally known figure and he's the founder of has been your leader for many years he left it all except to the party's election debacle in two thousand and seven and now he's back why. i personally asked him if we could put his name of the top of our ballots 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 but that's why i 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 faces more are the people see this is on the other hand on the other hand does the party need a person like you leans to whose political career is already in decline. naturally

the party needs a person like you of linsky is one of the leading economists in russia it was appointed the leading cause of the council for economic reform reform and this way they showed their high esteem for him. today the reason to single economist among our politicians. and the fact that our party is such a strong economist as well as are obvious advantage for example it was he who prepared this land homes roads program 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. where different and we want to make use of the advantage we have. i mean something different

i don't know mr lynskey very well maybe longer than you have i just think that many people view your linsky as a person who simply can't. remember how many times he tried he failed so people think somebody else should get a chance. no whining the party has won several elections with the helm of. the elections are different now than there was a well known situation in two thousand and three when on the night after the election mr putin called misty of linsky to congratulate him on the fact that his party passed the five percent threshold. for the person. the morning it turned out. that nothing of the kind had happened. in your party's golden age. intelligentsia was the bulk of your electorate. any decent ritual was supposed to vote for ya. those for you today.

first of all the liberal mind of intelligence is 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 but time goes on of course and we have 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 women couldn't was in power put in this part of their life and most 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 sound now it's more don't

you think well most of them are conformist but there are bright young people if we recall the controversy with the recent visit of the president to the department of journalism and of the moscow state university and other cases when students begin to speak out for their rights these are emerging elements of healthy noncom affirm as they 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 they want to protest and to realize themselves on the streets and we let them do that so you see the raw people with some very popular in three to also left your party a work of on the tree 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 left because they felt they had to make it into the parliament well yeah it was not position party. on the left due to our differences an afternoon problems. 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 yosh in he left for radicals to whom we have many claims. other things due to what was going on in the ninety's all the departures just mean your god has a distinct ideology still those who were popular figures and it's a loss for your party yes a loss if it comes to choose between persons and principles which is the latter used you find a standard technicalities of the russian electoral system correctly in case your

party doesn't make it into the duma all the birds that were cast for it will be proportional and distributed among those who have qualified because right now as a result when i vote for you i'm risking that my blood will be passed over to united russia right. it's not quite so if according to the new rules we get five percent and 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. and many people in russia think their opposition parties should unite the end when naive voters ask why

can't you all unite people usually. they say it's because of your look is position . not quite so we did welcome everybody to join yabloko. some of them have different views about the nine hundred ninety s. for instance. we might not have agreed with them and sprog lou we think of the country when the wrong way ever we are ready to get united with you you're welcome to the party defend your position take part 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 out of that will talk. would mean she was sides and schizophrenia for a party. so it's not a proper complaint against us we chose 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 us a party or feel to get registered and then we have the former pensioners party we have a women's faction a faction of interpreter young people human rights and champions we know the whole civil society around us. to macwrite it forces there is a convenient way of interacting both with. and with each other based on yarmulke. 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 called the russian democratic party . and their separate out of the spotlight will be back with more of a common focus on in the bush a little red state. in. kick

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