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to. come to the store. in the city. the. following welcome across the time you're all 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 who is the russian voter. led to the story of. the. cross not 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 and 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 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 for going to these 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 can russia. overall in the country he remains very popular 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 mink 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 ericka had to say would say was

more conservative well of course it's very difficult to talk about an average of all 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 will say that the general trend is the following. a typical russian of all to 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 on which is children and that person he might get a little disillusionment with the government in the last three years probably at the peak of these protests it was registered by the source you all just north in december but in march last year. december it was already between art but you know this person hadn't looked at all the 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 people changes and none of these changes is called to been official to everyone so these people are tired but i haven't looked at the options the majority is going to support it jonathan i'm going to i think it's an interesting point the dealer just brought up you know the options out 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 why i think average russian virtuousness such a person is relatively apathetic partly because they think there isn't much of a real choice and secondly because they think that putin is going to win. organize that he wins whatever the voters do so i think there's probably more so even if 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 erica if i can go to you i mean it's

just hard for the outside world to understand the glider me a building 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 is 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 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 tends to please the westerners so it's intense at least the russians so the point is that putin has incarnated the votes of works particularly 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 people in the countryside the people in the smaller cities the working class see themselves in putin's 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 i think 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 up with amenities and i'm talking about moscow st petersburg are the major cities that you know that their western peers going to jennifer 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 peter's square. well 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 in or 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 would you talk about that 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 want russia 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 the us and i think that is why some of them will not vote at all because they're disgusted 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 man 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 likely will see if your words and i agree with people here i should hear this is certainly all right we're going to jump in and we're going to do. yeah. it is not this is the people 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 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. advance quite substantially in the election and the extreme nationalists the end of their advance there 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 want russians want more like there was this or a very poor there was a very very bad for the united russia party which is the ruling party because it was trying to serve their interests are now very well established. so this idea that people love united russia and last guten i think let's wait until the election results come through well i would. agree with you no no no russia is going to be my first i agree with a lot of what ganesan just said but you know just two years ago i would completely agree that russian voters are pathetic now that's not the case very good or that's

not the case you know my niece who is 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's with broth of steam she dislikes prosser of to be frank with you but she went there because it's interesting you and her if you do it is i want russia to be a country where people choose their leaders. hugh might choose putin eat a percentage sure she would vote for him because jonathan you. right you said that the younger russians are 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 foreign press in english or they redid on in the press some of them speak other languages and they just meet by the edges of the foreign press which expects us to do

something like an arab revolution here so there are 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 has become an normal country in a normal country 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 wide grievance you know a speech some kind of a draw. the red square on the street that doesn't mean we're going to have another nine hundred seventeen for more than just normal rushes 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 demonizing. and so on are very serious and 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 the putin swap was mishandled was a bad idea putin should have simply modified the american jump in here you know we're sure to bring them to that short break we'll continue our discussion on the approaching elections day arcade. games. well. science technology innovation all the list of elements from around russia we've gone to the future covered. download the

official ulti obligation to i phone or i pod touch from the i.q. napster. one jonty life on the go. video on demand oxys live broadcasts and r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. questions on the dot com.

welcome back to crossfire i'm carol to remind you we're talking about the march fourth presidential election in russia. take a. listen. ok gentlemen 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 conservatism 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 as 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 right is different from the arab spring the arab spring had a strong religious element in the protests the purchase 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 people who are mainly protesting the russians they're doing it from for morality reasons if you like for ethical reasons they're not course they're not the unemployed and so on as you point out but 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 that himself when he was you know thought to be a powerful president unfortunately not to be such and yet what he's done about corruption almost nothing all these great when i was a. graduate are still the point is if i can write for a while i just finish the point could i just finish the point go ahead and all these russians who go they're not all committed class you know you go only be deterring two from damage and a virtue to moscow and these these are ordinary middle class kids who've been to sri lanka or 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 to grew old 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 and the sort of let me ask the russians about that well i

agree with jonathan on most of his points i will 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 i think basically understood that something has to be changed i think he realized there was too much of the same faces so you know his idea to write articles where he would explain to the people what he plans to do was a very good day dear and you know now russians returning from a place like egypt or russia we don't have exactly the same feeling we had twenty years or twenty years ago i remember the feeling was terrible you know. 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 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 cross there some of them make 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. the way you are i think that first of all if you're flying from heathrow to to domodedovo then you're going to be proud of russia because. the there has been so much there but this really great deal of improvement . we're talking i mean people tend to be ok they want new faces well this is not a television reality show this is the governance of the country and i would suspect little 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. 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 tend to speak like as soon as you got across the border you were in heaven and you were 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 harry carry which is being carried out in the west 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 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 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 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 their threshold for political parties signatures their 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 movie events and 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. no i think that and i hope that after the election there will 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 it would be you know the pressures on it. and so on i mean i just hope that it will remain relaxed and not sort of punish people very or if you go in the obviously direction do you know what do you think about that i think you know people are you know i said repeatedly on this nation 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 know. you know since i'm not in point now. it's here to openly. there is a problem with the russian position i hope there will not be any clambered down from the government but i hauled we will see some new faces in their position

especially in the media part of it well yes because the media people inside of their position there have been this seeing 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 we're not quite happy with the people who are standing at the podium the problem is he didn't have an alternative so i hope we will have some alternative not the nationalists like crew off always do you mean war who cracked up to be a real racist just read his next. lost article in vietnam still not not these kind of racists but you know really liberal moderate maybe social democratic european thinking people in the best sense of the word european not in the sense of the more than you're saying you're not ok erica thank you i

think i'm really glad to be my brother so because looking at the nature of the i. position 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 and we have these cultural. communists you know socialist they want to reprivatize the economy and then you go to the other extreme that are diskin heads and you have national bolshevik space 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 they drive s.u.v.s. the mayor the mayor is so great 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 glynn put in 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 conspire of who's madder than i had or 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 very loose scrolly and i struggle to find a you know where she does need in our position and we need political change and certainly i mean i take a counterpoint to the western press the sort of demonization of putin that he's not perfect and his 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 opposition but one which represents the witches of the

russian people this would be very important if only to provide some prospective alternation of governance some time going forward ok jonathan if i go back to you in london i mean when 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 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 already been mentioned will step aside you think that's a possibility well i don't know but i mean i think there's some contradictions in what you just said 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 party 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 you i think you are you are the very term you know that these many of these protests the speakers were chosen by the members of the demonstration on the web so you know i think here i don't you think is that 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 i see you next time and remember across knuckles. you can.

sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't i'm sorry was a big check. that

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