it's time for you have an opposition stronghold in the rest of the syrian city of homs. government controlled by the residents claims retreating rebels have been killing people the syrian government allows the red cross into the city following a un security council call for humanitarian aid but there was supported by russia and china. e.u. leaders have sealed a key fiscal pact aimed at keeping member states deficits within limits which critics say. however when it comes to budgetary policies great britain and the

czech republic of the only members that refused to sign the treaty a referendum is being waited on. by the russia's prime minister the presidential candidate who says the rise in opposition activities has energized his government to respond to changing public mood with the foreign media the election refused to back parliamentary elections if he wins sunday. he's the man who's the center of discussion and debate. you can. follow him welcome across town people about voting 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 can. still live. to cross that the upcoming presidential election here in russia i'm joined by dmitri barber chair in the studio with me he's an independent political analyst in madrid we go to air 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 to read 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 do you think there's a typical russian voter and if there is a typical one how would you describe that voter. well i would say the typical russian voter if we can use mathematical averages one is 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 even if 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 called 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 would say was more conservative well of course it's very difficult to talk about an average of all to which you have you know russia is one of the more of those countries in the world it's very difficult to generalize here but in general i would say that the general trend is the following. typical russian of all to use a tired person who lived through some very difficult times. who has been feeling in some discomfort especially in the last two or three years but who is still relational and who wants to have a perspective for himself on which is children and that person he might get a little disillusioned with the government in the us three yes probably the peak of these protests it was registered by this source you all just north in december but

in march last year. december it was already between art but you know this person haven't looked at all the credit i think those are suggesting it's economically financially driven not politically driven or when to the. 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 a health care reform and just like in any country of today's world these are all painful changes and none of these changes is called lead in official to everyone so these people are tired but haven't looked at the options the majority is going to support him jonathan i'm going to i think it's an interesting point that the images brought up you know the options out there i mean if there is much as western media likes to demonize by the mere putin the options out there aren't that credible aren't that interesting actually that's why i think average russian voters 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 is going to win. organized that he wins whatever the voters do so i think there's going to be probably more so he really even if he wins and even if we give even if he wins it's rigged i mean it seems to me that kind of argument caves in on itself erick if i can go to you i mean it's just hard for the outside world to understand the drive to me of. 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 is going to be massively reelected now. there is

great 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 this solution was falling apart could not pay its own bills could not feed its people you now have a wealthy middle class country with an assertive foreign policy which may not please the west but tends to please the westerners so tends to please the russians so the point is that putin has incarnated the both vox populi in russia the russians the not the people not necessarily the upper middle class who speak english and live in moscow and go on facebook but the dog 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 were predicting his demise you know if i go back to you one of the things i'm living here in moscow one of the things i find is very interesting there is a generational difference and i think it was 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 are the major cities that you know that their western peers kind of 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. no 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 the in many europe western european countries so that they are even if they're 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 of you talked about that doesn't remember the disaster of the yeltsin years and that is only you know coming perhaps to the election for the first time in their lives there is a great sense that they want things to be changed they want russia to be more like other countries they want to get rid of the corruption they want to get rid of the cynicism that they see in a lot of us and i think that is why some of them may not vote at all because they discussed it with the system and 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 going well you are going to see if your words you know i agree with john and certainly people here actually hear me here this is certainly all right they're going to jump in with a team or a. it is not the people of the russian people may want change but

if they want change quite frankly it's not the change that the west wants to see if we look at the legislative elections the liberal opposition got crushed there there was some false implication 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 end of their vance it was a very very small vote for those people who want russia to be more like the rest of the world i think the russian people one of the russians one very likely resists or a very poor there was a very very good for the united russia party which is the ruling party and it was issue even gave instructions so very very slow very much astonished so so so this idea that people love united russia and love guta and i think let's wait until the

election results come through well i would. agree with you know russia is going to be the first i agree with a lot of what ganesan just sad but you know just two years ago i would completely agree that russian voters are appreciating now that's not the case very good that's not the case you know my niece who is the 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 at the election she is with prosser of steam she dislikes prothro to be frank with you but she went there because it's interesting you and hurry to do it is i want russia to be a country where people choose their leaders. hume i'd choose put him eighty percent sure she would walk for him because jonathan you're right you said that younger russians are e.q. and the internet and you now 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 a majority even among the young people there are many young people who read the foreign press in english or they read it on you know press some of them speak other languages and they just meet why they educate all the foreign press which expects us to do something like an arab revolution here right so they're all sort of various you know impulse us inside russian society but in general i would say that the general trend right now is very good russia is big government and normal country in a normal country and you have some young people who like to joke about the government if the government doesn't overreact there's going to be a normal country just don't expect fifteen people with a white ribbons you know stage some kind of a draw. at the red square on the street that doesn't mean we're going to have another nine hundred seventeen for 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've 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 with. syria and i would like to add one point which is that one must not confuse united russia with putin and i think the united. and it was something 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 it simply modified the american jump in here really going to we're sure i'd agree to that short break we'll continue our discussion on the approaching election. state park. became the first story of. the future.

as russia votes for president r.t. looks at the five running for the kremlin top job. to see if the two time president and current prime minister and face of united russia party. the record to gin points to stability he secured after the chaotic e.l.c. years praised for overseeing a booming economy the freestyle machine russia's presence on the world stage. for the presidency modernization fighting corruption maximizing russia's impacts in international affairs controversy criticized for centralizing power in russia and staying at the helm too long. for some to find the problems positions and aspirations of modern russia. presidential election two thousand and

twelve r.t. . would be soon which prices. move. from plans to. start time team don't come. to kick. start. to. come across i'm going to go through my job we're talking about the march fourth presidential election in russia. you can. still see. ok jonathan 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 and the rise of conservatism in the united states and it seems to me that when we when we look at these protests that are a 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 the same time the 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 process 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 and 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 unemployment and so on as you point out but that doesn't devalue their protest and 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. so bad himself when he was you know thought to be a powerful president unfortunately and are not to be such what he's done about corruption almost nothing all these disagree when i was there was nothing close later still have quite a few the point of what i just only supported could i just finish the point go ahead all these russians are bald they're not upper middle class you know you go only to the train to from. moscow and these these are ordinary middle class kids who've been to sri lanka they've been sort of majok or they've been to sharm el sheikh or whatever it is they're not terribly wealthy but they've been abroad and

they want to 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 see 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 putin understood that something has to be changed i think he realized that there was too much of the same pictures so you know he's a gear to write articles where he would explain to the people what he plans to do it 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 i gather will look even at the usually milky way 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 a prosthesis some of them like my niece become of service but i don't expect a revolution in russia 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 domodedovo then you've one of the prouder of russia because. the there has been so much there but there's been a great deal of improvement. we're talking i mean people came to the ok they want new faces well this is not a television reality show this is the governance of

a 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 spain where i'm speaking from right now is in the extreme really perilous economic situation one of the problems is when we talk about russia people tend to russians in particular tend to speak like as soon as you get across the border you are in heaven you are in countries ruled by the holy ghost now i would look at the appalling deterioration of the democratic process in the united states and a great extent in the u k. and the sort of economic hairy kiri which is being carried out in rest in western europe and maybe the russians sort of look abroad and say do we want do we want to live like that we want to have the same problems

that you do and maybe the answer is not and if you go back you want to come with 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 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 it's not going 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 one thing about governors about the 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 would be the political route we need political reform with the dance going 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 it does and i hope that after the election there will be some kind of clamping down on these you know all this political activity that we've seen over the last six to nine months would be you know pressures on her. and so on i mean i just hope it will remain relaxed and not sort of punish the people who are going to go in the obviously 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 he's there to be very frank with you know. you know. not employed by the and

always talk unless. there is a problem with the russian position i hope there will not be any down from the government but i hold we will see some new faces in their position is specially in the media part of what this because of the media people inside their position there have been this scene 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 people not just there but during these meetings and all of people in the crawl out we're not quite happy with the people who are standing at the podium the problem is we didn't have an alternative so i hope we will have some i would turn it if not the nationalists like crew off always more of who cracked up to be a real racist just read his next. whilst article and give them a stick and not these kind of racist but you know really liberal

more direct maybe social democratic european thinking people in the best sense of the word european not in the sense of the more than you think you know. erica frankly i think i'm really glad the game of rap is low because we're looking at the nature of the eye. opposition here there's a lot of really nasty elements in it and i think a lot of western media doesn't like to focus in on it because it's embarrassing ok we have these cultural. communists you know socialist they want to reprivatize the economy and then you go to the other extreme that are just skinheads and you have national bolsheviks but it's just 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 tootin for that but it was equally bad during the yeltsin years. and we take some of the people who been right in eyes by the western press we have spare of who's madder than i had are we have. no value who is clearly paid by the americans we have. there is it's really very difficult to find prophet of who. can't really be taken terribly seriously. russia is not really ready for a bruce scully and i struggle to find it. should go as needed our concession and we need political change and certainly i mean i take a counterpoint to the western press the sort of demonization 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

a 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 where presents the wishes of the russian people this would be very important if if only to provide some trust alternation of government in some time going forward ok jonathan i got back to you in london i want you said you worry about a possible clampdown i would say just reverse i think i worry about seeing this 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 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 of already

been mentioned will step aside do you think that's a possibility well i don't know but i mean i think there's some contradictions in much of this sort on the one hand you talk about the opposition as a model of this sort of saying this opposition is hopeless two minutes later you say this opposition. has 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 you know i think you're out of date i mean at this many of these protests that the speakers were chosen by the members of the demonstration. saying who they are no i think you're out in deep 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 crosstalk.