the. three stooges. revolting videos for your. c.e.o. don carty to. talk about here with r.t. here's a look at the top stories and opposition stronghold in the restive syrian city of homs is back under government control as a resident claims retreating rebels have been killing people that's as the syrian government allows the red cross in doing battle city following a un security council call for humanitarian aid bound by russia and china. is prepared to see what he fiscal pact aimed at keeping member states deficits within the limits which critics say will cost patients their sovereignty when it comes to budgetary policies are going on the cobbles of law could get expand with

serbia now being formally granted candidates in status. and russia's prime minister and presidential candidate whatever putin says the rise in opposition activities has energized his government to respond to changing public mood leading for media the election front runner refused to back new parliamentary elections however if your sunday school. and prime minister putin is a man who is the center of discussion our debate show cross-talk focusing today on the presidential election and a man who is the frontrunner. they can. only welcome across the time people go boating for the future in two days' time russians will go to the polls to elect their next president what is the nature of russia's political system how has it changed over time and most importantly is the

russian voter. list taking. to cross the upcoming presidential election here in russia i'm joined by dmitry babich here in the studio with me he's an independent political analyst in madrid we go to eric kraus he's an independent asset manager and author of the strategy monthly truth in beauty and in london we cross to jonathan steele he is the international affairs commentator for the guardian and all right gentlemen crossed out rules in effect and that means you can jump in anytime you want also i'd like three remind our panel and my viewers that because of the russian election law we cannot speak specifically about polling numbers as of the twenty seventh to sunday the day of the election so we won't be using a lot of numbers here in this program ok eric kraus if i go to you first in madrid reading western media about this election it seems like the russian voter is very unidimensional you do you think there's a typical russian voter and if there is

a typical one how would you describe that voter. but i would say the typical russian voter who can use mathematical averages is one who's going to vote for mr putin. we've heard a lot in the western press about how putin was losing his popularity how all the facebook protests in moscow in the demonstrations meant that the regime was on its way out and of course when the polls which i can't give any numbers on but the polls have certainly shown a very substantial rise and that mr putin is going to sweep to victory in the first round so i understand that he is unpopular with some of the foreign powers and perhaps those people who have influence on the foreign press but in russia. overall in the country he remains very popular ok in the studio here with me i mean how would you describe the voter because i mean if you read western mainstream media they focus a lot on what's called the opposition of the new opposition what i call the main

opposition here in moscow and there are quite a few people that would probably fall into that category but it's look at the entire country i mean is it a liberal electorate a conservative electorate i mean obviously what eric had to say which they was more conservative well of course it's very difficult to talk about an average of all time because you have you know russia is one of the most diverse countries in the world it's very difficult to generalize here but in general i would say that the general trend is the following. a cute little russian of all there is a person who lived through some very difficult times. who has been feelin some discomfort especially in the last two or three years but who is still relational and who wants to have a perspective for himself and for his children and that person he might get a little disillusioned with the government in the last three years probably at the peak of these protests it was registered by this source you all just not in december but in march last year. december it was already petering out but you know

this person haven't looked at all the candidates that are suggesting it's economically financially driven not politically driven or when to the well into the you know there were two or three very unpopular reforms in russia and to my mind not very successful reforms there was an education reform there was health care reform and just like in any country of today's world these are all people changes and none of these changes is a tall cuban official for everyone so these people are tired but i haven't looked at the options the majority is going to support him in journalism i go to i think it's an interesting point that the image is brought up you know the options are there i mean if there is much as western media likes to demonize what amir putin the options out there aren't that credible aren't that interesting actually. that's where i think average russian version is there's such a person is relatively apathetic partly because they think there isn't much of a real choice and secondly because they think that he's going to win it will be

organized with the rings whatever the voters do so i think there's going to be probably more so even if even if he wins and even if you give even if he wins it's rigged i mean it seems to me that kind of argument caved in on itself erica taken go to you i mean it's just hard for the outside world to understand the drive to me a vote is popular. well there's something very embarrassing for the journalists which is since two thousand they have been warning us every issue of the economist every issue of the f.t. about the catastrophes which are about to hit russia and the only problem with these catastrophes is they just don't seem to occur now if you read the press a few weeks ago there were these warnings that putin was finished he was done for and now the he's going to be massively reelected now. there is some degree of apathy i agree there have been some reforms which have been badly conducted but you've got to realize we're talking about

a country which twelve years ago was at the brink of the solution was falling apart could not be its own bills could not feed its people you now have a wealthy middle class country with an insert of foreign policy which may not please the west but tends to please the westerners so please the russians so the point is that putin has incarnated both vox populi in russia russians the not the people not necessarily the upper middle class who speak english and live in moscow and go on facebook but the rogue the people in the countryside the people in the smaller cities the working class see themselves in putin it's what's extraordinary is after twelve years in power he's as popular as he is and he's going to win the election by a very wide margin and i think this is going to be embarrassing for some of the journalists who are predicting is the most you know if go back to you one of the

things i living here in moscow one of the things i find is very interesting there is a generational difference and i think game of bob which is really spot on there there's a there's a generation that remembers the absolute agony of the one nine hundred ninety s. and then we have a younger generation of people that don't do not remember that because they were so young and they have been brought brought up with amenities and i'm talking about moscow st petersburg other major cities that you know that their western peers going to benefit with but then we have on the other hand a huge silent majority in this country i mean not everyone lives in moscow and st petersburg. that's true but i think russia has a huge internet audience numbers of people who go on the web is probably higher than in than in many europe western european countries so that they are even if they are living you know miles away from the borders of russia they are. over the internet through cyberspace to the rest of the world and i think there is a among this younger generation who talked about the doesn't remember the disaster of the yeltsin years and that is only you know coming to the election for the first

time in their lives there is a great sense that they want things to be changed they won't rush in to be more like other countries they want to get rid of the corruption they want to get rid of the cynicism so they see it a lot of us and i think that is why some of them may not vote at all because they are disgusted with the system others may vote for anybody but just to register the fact that they want to change they want a different elite this one has had twelve years as you say in power maybe it's time for a different one ok but it's been a very successful twelve years to relatively speaking go ahead well you are going to we will see if your words you know i agree with your little people here actually hear me here this is sara lee all right you're going to jump in with a dimmer. it is not and this is the people of the russian people may want change but if they want change quite frankly it's not the change the thought west wants to see if we look at the legislative elections the liberal opposition

got crushed there there was some fortification of results but the overall results were maybe off by five percent then pretty much reflected the will of the russian people that if you believe in democracy then you just have to let the people vote the way they want to and the communists. advanced quite substantially in the election and the extreme nationalists the and the paired vance it was a very very small vote for those people who won for russian could be more like the rest of the world i think the russian peoples are the russians one very likely with this or a very of course there was a very very for the united russia party which was the ruling party and the coalition even gave this punishment is a very very slow very well established theory so so so so this idea that people love united russia and laws and i think that's where all the election results come through well i would. agree with you know that russia is going to be the first i

agree with a lot of what ganesan just sad but you know just two years ago or i would completely agree that russian voters are a mistake now that's not the case of course that's not the case you know my niece who was very young who didn't go to vault at the last election and who never was interested in politics today she works as an observer in the election she's withdraw her of steam she dislikes prosser of to be frank with you but she went there because it's interesting you and her eighty two years i want russia to be a country where people choose their leaders. hew might choose to push him eighty percent sure she would vote for him because jonathan you rightly said that younger russians are to internet and you know have a lot of influence on them. i agree with you there are some people who are just angry with the government and who want to see change but they're not the majority

even among the young people there are many young people who read foreign press in english or they redid on you know press some of them speak other languages and they just meet by their teachers of the foreign press which expects us to do something like an arab revolution here so there are also various you know impulses inside russian society but in general i would say that the general trend right now is very good russia has become an normal country in a normal country you have some young people who like to drop a ball to government if the government doesn't all the react that's going to be a normal country just don't expect if fifteen people with a wide grievance you know stage some kind of withdraw. at the red square on the street that doesn't mean we're going to have another nine hundred seventeen to more than just normal russians become a normal country ok jonathan i mean i can't agree with him on this one i mean i think the participation level is amazing for i have lived in this country for

twelve years and for the first time in twelve years people actually talk about politics i think that's fantastic go ahead. you know i think that's absolutely right and i perfectly agree with was demonizing president i'd like that and so you know seriously i would like to add one point which is that one must not confuse united russia with putin i think the united. and it was something of a defeat in the legislative elections was much more a defeat for me and frankly i think that putin swap was mishandled was a bad idea put into that simply modified the american jump in here really only we're sure i'd agree to that short break we'll continue our discussion on the approaching elections today are. you. still.

as votes for president archie looks at the five running for the kremlin top job. liberal democrat. by far which is most boisterous bully politician. at sixty five juveniles he is on his fifth presidential campaign having won ten percent of the vote in two thousand and eight his campaign slogan is little skate or it'll be worse. for the presidency a two year drive against corruption and drug smuggling in russia farah food and housing prices controversy cost campaign promises included free vulcan and free underwear journals he's infamous for racist remarks and fighting with opponents. for securing parliamentary immunity for the man britain says poisoned to alexander litvinenko. presidential election two thousand and twelve on party.

liz. liz. can. start. coming across i'm going to remind you we're talking about the march fourth presidential election in russia. they can. still live. ok gentlemen and one of the things i kind of like i mean i don't like to mimic our richard nixon because that's not my political flavoring but i mean he did talk about the the silent majority and they can the rise of conservative ism in the united states and it seems to me that when we when we look at these protests that are televised on russian television and you can get to watch plenty of it on

you tube if you want is actually energized the silent majority because you know if you live outside of moscow and st petersburg the amenities are not is great or you're right you can be on the internet that's fine ok you can be anywhere to be on the internet but there's a tiny amenities and i think a lot of people say look these people in moscow they're the ones that have benefited from twelve years of this political establishment and they're complaining about it and that's energized people outside of the major cities. well i think the main thing is that the people who can energize the protests are not doing it economically that's why it is different from the arab spring the arab spring had a strong religious element in the protests the protests in western europe in greece and spain and portugal it's all about economics people who you know who are seeing their living standards cut the people who are mainly protesting in russia they're doing it for me for morality reasons if you like for ethical reasons they're not course they're not and i'm employed and so on as you point out but that doesn't devalue their criticism doesn't mean that you should drive

a bridge between your wedge between them and the rest of the country they in a sense of the leading edge because they're saying look there is too much corruption often made videos so but himself when he was you know thought to be a powerful president unfortunately are not to be such and yet what he's done about corruption almost nothing all these disagree with and i would. think that's made a strong point if you can write a fine fellow distributor for it could i just finish the point go ahead all these russians are bald they're not upper middle class you know you go only the train to from domodedovo to moscow and these these are ordinary middle class kids who've been to sri lanka they've been to majok or they've been to sharm el sheikh or whatever it is they're not terribly wealthy but they've been a group called and they want to be come back to a country which they feel proud of and not ashamed of which many of them feel now because of the corruption in the service let me ask you as a russian about that. well i agree with jonathan on most of his points i would say that these protests are media protests very often just people are tired of seeing

the same faces on television for twelve years and i think it's understandable and they think basically understood that something has to be changed i think he realized there was too much of the same features so you know he's a deal to write articles where he would explain to the people what he plans to look was a very good day dear and. you know no russians returning from a place like egypt or russia we don't have exactly the same feeling we had twenty years ago or twenty years ago i remember the feeling was terrible you know you we felt joy you know when we went abroad and we felt depressed when we came home and now you look at them idea that well look even at the usual image they were these are not places you're ashamed of when you come back sometimes you have to pay money but this is a completely different country so indeed i would say that this is indeed an interesting situation where you have indeed some new you know impulses pushing

people to be more active some of them go to process some of them my niece become observers but i don't expect a revolution in russia but i expect gradual improvement eric you want to jump in there i think a number of points go ahead. yeah i think that first of all if you're flying from heathrow to to gum a dead over then you're going to be proud of russia because. the there has been so much there that this really great deal of improvement. we're talking i mean people tend to be ok they want new faces well this is not an illusion reality show this is the governance of the country and i would suspect that a large percentage of the russian people feel well things could be better things could always be better but they are getting better and if you're coming from egypt back to russia i don't really think there's much to feel ashamed and if you're

coming from now your ticket will spain where i'm speaking from right now is in extremely perilous economic situation one of the problems is when we talk about russia people tend to russians in particular country speak like as soon as you get across the border you are in heaven and you are in countries ruled by the holy ghost now i would look at the appalling the theory aeration of the democratic process in the united states into great extent in the u k. and these sort of economic hairy kiri which is being carried out in the west in western europe and maybe the russians sort of look abroad and say do we want to live like that we want to have the same problems they do and maybe the answer is not and if you go back you want to time when the russians were ashamed to be russian look at the one nine hundred ninety s. look at the yeltsin years when basically we had a government which was very largely beholden to the west which was very popular because they were doing what washington and brussels and london wanted them to do.

and the situation was not a happy one and so right now i think russians can feel a certain pride in the fact their country is independent and is assertive and is increasingly wealthy you know jonathan i think one of the interesting things is that. in looking at political change of the last twenty years not supposed to be a little bit more global here is that you know when. the first putin was first president he introduced a number of political reforms that a lot of people were very skeptical about but we were talking about governors about their threshold for political parties signatures signatures for candidates and things like that and that was in put in play and it created a great deal of stability now we're hearing these sounds that you know now they're going to ease down on some of those things there so it really with the political route we need political reform with the vance been in the economy with the financial sector and things like that there needs to be a little bit more balance there don't you think. you know i think that and i hope

that after the election there won't be some kind of clamping down on these so you know all this political activity that we've seen over the last six to nine months would be you know the pressure is on. and so on i mean i just hope it's so. relaxed and not sort of punish people who go in the opposite direction do you know what do you think about that i think that you know people are you know i said repeatedly on this station that i am so happy to see a protest movement here because it gets everybody into a conversation about politics about their future of their country and we're seeing it now and i think it's healthy and i think i think the ruling elite these there to be very frank with you now. you know. not and paul. there is a problem with the russian position i hope there will not be any ground down from the government but i hold we will see some new faces in their position you specially in the media part of your yes because the media people inside their

position they have been the same for eighteen nineteen twenty years they have been here for a much longer time than mr putin and indeed there is a problem in all during these meetings few people noticed that i during these meetings and all the people in the crowd out were not quite with the people who are standing at the podium the problem is they didn't have an alternative so i hope we will have some i would turn it if not the nationalists alike crew off always mean war who cracked up to be a real racist just read his next. last article india the mystic and not these kind of racists but you know really liberal moderate maybe social democratic european thinking people in the best sense of the world european not in the sense of the more than you are saying you're not ok eric if i go to you i think i'm really glad the demographics though because we're looking at the nature of the i. position here there's

a lot of really nasty elements in it and i think that a lot of western media doesn't like to focus in on it because it's embarrassing ok and we have these ultra. communists you know socialist that want to reprivatize the economy and then you go to the other extreme that are just skin heads and you have national bolsheviks but it's this kind of embarrassing to talk about them and it's everyone's put under the same rubric of oh they're white ribbon nice people that drive s.u.v.s. the mayor is so right in in what he says i have lived in russia for the last fifteen years and i've been basically following it for twenty and the quality of the opposition has been systematically poor and it's now popular to blame tooting for that but it was equally bad during the yeltsin years. and we take some of the people who've been lionized by the western press we have conspired whose madder than i had or we have. no value who is clearly paid by the americans we have. there

it's very very difficult to find prophet of who. can't really be taken terribly seriously. russia is not really ready for a brew scully and i struggle to find you know where she does need an opposition and we need political change and certainly i mean i take a counterpoint to the western press the sort of the immunization of putin but he's not perfect and he's mortal and we're going to political system is going to have to evolve towards a more poorly stick system and thus far i don't see it happening i'm not sure that the russian opposition is going to be a pretty sort of western style liberal one but even if it's sort of a nationalistic. patriotic our position but one which represents the witches of the russian people this would be very important if only to provide some prospect of

alternation of governance some time going forward ok jonathan if i go back to you in london i want you said you worry about a possible clampdown i would say just reversed i think i worry about seeing this this opposition group just tear itself apart because as usual russian intellectuals they just love to be you know alpha dog you know and you know in then people going to walk away if i can't run it then you know i'm not going to be part of it. it's not my party i'm not going to participate and we've seen that systematically for the last twenty years everyone likes to blame the current no ruling elite but the fact of the matter is is that these people have never been able to agree among themselves and maybe what they need is a new face and they could in the old opposition and some of the names already been mentioned will step aside you think that's a possibility but i don't know but i mean i think there's some contradictions in much i just said on the one hand you talk about the opposition as a model of this sort of thing this opposition is hopeless two minutes later you say this opposition call right now they have one thing in common they're against one person so it's not contradictory whatsoever after the fact then it will become very

contradictory but i think i think i think you're out of date i mean i have his many of these protests scientists time that the speakers were chosen by the members of the demonstration on the web saying who they don't know i think you're on m.t.v. because i didn't work because they ended up with some of the most ugly characters and i'm afraid gentlemen will run out of time many thanks to my guest today here in the studio in london and in madrid and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember cross talk rules.