international news and comment line from moscow on charon tear out you with your headlines thousands to finally remain on tucker where in egypt for a seventh day of protests egypt's military rulers say they're sorry for the deaths of almost forty demonstrators killed in the worst clashes since february as revolt but public anger shows no sign of decreasing. the. arab foreign ministers are also in cairo but it's syria and egypt that's on their agenda as they threaten to mask us with further sanctions meanwhile france proposes

to establish so-called humanitarian corridors in syria to get aid to areas under attack from state forces a strong echo of the pretext under which the no fly zone was established over libya . plus russia stresses it's not going to solve the reset of ties with the us paul will halt nuclear disarmament and deploy rockets on its borders if washington establishes its missile shield in europe moscow is seeking written legal guarantees that the shield will not be directed against it but washington refuses to put its wearable assurances in writing. as russia gears up for parliamentary elections on the fourth of december artie's all gordon know it has been sitting down with the leaders of the campaigning parties in his interview show spotlight this time his guest is fair game and throw him leader of the goods in a tragic party stay with us. and.

hello again to welcome to spotlight been for the show our team for an hour we're all playing today we continue introducing you to the latest in russian politics the parliamentary election russia will take place on december fourth several political parties are campaigning for the father of the fifteen seats of the parliament slower change to the state to the fight is way more to intriguing this year and it's the first time and 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 the leader of the goblet of the. russians up was not just a brute or a tech company it's too soon to leave a political party. in just like the gadgets it used to be prefixed

as it positions itself doesn't bother you but to actually i was a chemist bostock the same popularity its technology produces namesake enjoys four years ago lost its representation of the state to. one of the only state parties in post soviet russia young google most condit in that room in one nine hundred ninety s. for many years it was headed by one of russia's most well known politicians grigori and clean ski or in one thousand nine hundred ninety two widely discussed five hundred days program a plan for the transition of the u.s. a sop to a free market economy a love of the program was never implemented affluence he 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. in was elected over the years the young party so

was hope you are retained in the one nine hundred ninety five state duma election it gained as many as forty five seats in two thousand and three its representation and to do what was it can feel that the party made several attempts at forming coalitions with governor we've grown movements but could never overcome differences with their potential partners in two thousand and eight sergei mutual he became doubtful course reader and his biggest challenge now we still get your book back into the state duma. hello mr metron and welcome to spotlight on which 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 it or is not official position says that is a social liberal policy to govern the party some social liberal yes which of the

world's prominent parties would you compare yourself to or there was a famous man living heart and made post-war germany one of the world's economic leaders we're told he called himself a social liberal if 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 with similar to the liberals but we also have much in common with the labor party. that's why the way the liberals and the labor party in britain everybody regionally one party when you they were together for some time and share 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 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. no you have a social markets in germany and in france to some extent. and european experience we are a party of european values is we openly say that. we believe the trasher should go with you or. even 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 and vote for you and do they want to go with europe of course they do. 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 to scare. china closer to them it's just one hour away from that area first of all china has

an authoritarian regime or china is a totally different civilization and culture. there is no way not china can be a model for russia. all right china on the contrary as a potential threat for us and not a partner by the way in order to prevent significant threats on the part of aggressive regimes in the east exists not just china it's very important for us to stand developing close cooperation with the e.u. and the us. yes. such a powerful alliance of three centers of power that we will be able to face any threats from the east or from the south so you must be happy then that russia is joining the w t o. the w.t. always a slightly different matter. the trash maybe joining the w t o prematurely our

economies commodity driven noncom order to industries are not developing. some industries are just beginning to develop 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 we suggest creating an internal source of economic growth and development presently our source is located externally i mean prices for hydrocarbons this is ration 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 terms roads program will 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 us 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 can be used for that since and 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 are there any meijer changes you'd like to make. sure i'd say that

russia's current foreign policy is sometimes. from teenage childish complex is that we often take offense right now we aren't happy with the g q stan so we're deporting migrant workers from russia back could you can stand it 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 stand well you know so that they would release the russian pilots. but look if we take the little one go case for example they have employed a somewhat different approach in dealing with that standoff one of the foreign ministry and its diplomats handle the case because it is much easier for russia to

put pressure on to stand on london or indeed we have to resort to such. childish and ridiculous gestures 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 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. that 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 doing it this kind of behavior has little or no effect on others at times it even has a negative impact the domestic lead is a way for russia's leaders to improve their popularity and score some political points for the election this is not the way foreign policy should be handled but on

the other hand don't you agree that in the soviet times before imports it was ideology based who ever said they were for socialism were our friends. over in the foreign policy has become more pragmatic when to deliver a putin travel to the country the 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 the so it's times some people would say and even we would admit that in some aspects our situation today's worse but in some ways it is definitely better we have more freedom now including in konami freedom which has effect. foreign policy making it more pragmatic have a certain complex sees persist sometimes russia still tends to act like a great empire with again this we 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 and there's a there's 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 we are eighteen years old we are young just turned of age a month ago i guess only the liberal democrats are older uprising the communist party is older too is there anything special about the current campaign it's. more of a genius is to use the media. sometimes it costs a lot but as a whole we have much much more air time than joining the past year election

campaigns which is very good this gives us a real chance says give me a leader of the russian democratic party. will be back shortly after a great group can do this and to be a stable. culture is that so much to follow this week each musician. mark westfield cantons in but doubt many of the hopes that the heart of the egyptian revolution is mubarak's military establishment ankle injury. lucky. more news today violence is once again flared up look these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of challenge

after. challenge for a shelter rooted a. mum mum. mum . welcome back to spotlight. a reminder that my guest on the show today is. the leader of the russian democratic party yabloko. mr mitra in you just senate hearing thing you said that the lections 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 complaint 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 in sort at 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 on the two biggest television channels visit least we have an opportunity to take part in the debates and united russia is not taking part in debates. by the way listen looks rather strange studio so to world when a ruling party refuses to take part in the us which i personally think that if the ruling party in france or britain or germany refused to participate in debates during a campaign it would be doomed but in russia they're better off without to be 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 parties 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 old 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 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 all the nights following the vote that is why we are joining efforts with other parties in coaching our monitors. cause 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 yabloko part at a polling station where i voted together with my family. so you mean that there should have been at least four votes or so well many more votes were discovered after the court had ordered a recount and that station and united russia had ninety percent of the votes and got zero but the polling stations where medvedev putin louche golf and other united russia party leaders voted the picture was very different the united 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 is that monitoring these crucial. because it means you mean more votes but it's not easy. he's an internationally known figure and he's the

founder of your work i mean he has been your leader familiars he left politics after 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 ballot i travel a lot and meet a lot of people and people often ask me where you've linsky is and 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 faces more are the people see this is on the on and on the other hand there's the party need a person like you've leans because political career is already in decline for naturally the party needs a person like you glinsky is one of the leading economists in russia he was appointed the leading cause in eight of the council for economic reform reform and this way they showed their highs theme for him when today the reason to single

economist among our politicians. and the fact that our party is such a strong economist is our 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. as we're different and we want to make use of the advantage we have. i mean something different i don't know mystery lewinsky very well maybe longer than you can i just think that many people view your linsky as 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're linsky at the helm

it's just the elections are different now than 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 when you were. 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 left try to. do something to eight year old was supposed to vote for ya. those for you today. first of all liberal minded 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 britain 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 security companies young people i don't mean us of course although we may seem younger selves and but those who are really young they've become more conformist his they have grown women couldn't was in power put in this part of their life most of them seem to be happy with the current situation 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 time to think well most of them are conformist and 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 firm as a give us hope. so you mean there are about ten percent among the young people take for instance the youth branch of yabloko where do they come from their students who came to us as they like us tanzania want to protest and to realize themselves on the streets and we let them do that see the rod people. some very popular in three in three also left europe or to work in a volley of dance 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 it was an opposition party. on the left due to our differences in ethnic problems. 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 asked for yes he left for radicals whom we have many claims. among other things due to what was going on in the ninety's all the departures just mean your book has a distinct ideology still those who are popular figures and it's a loss for your party yes a loss of that comes to choose between persons and principles which is the latter you if i understand the term you calories of the russian electoral system corruptly your party doesn't get in 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 voters ask why can't you all unite people usually lean here they say it's because of your look is a position. not quite so we did welcome everybody to join yabloko. there could be some of them have different views about the one

thousand nine hundred for instance. we might not have agreed with that. we think that the country when the wrong way ever we're 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 valet replied first introduced for chairman posts. and after that will talk and would mean suicide's 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 field to get registered and then we have the former pensioners party we have a 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 the album and with each other based on your book. they have their own ambitions and refused to do that. thank you very much and good luck thank you thank you very much for being with us and just to remind you that my guest today both city leaders of the russian democratic party. and their separate out. will be back with more common cause because in the end of the bush a little red state part in a. kick ass.

all. british. find out what's really high.