this is our g.'s presidential election coverage live from moscow with me sean thomas prime minister vladimir putin looks set to take russia's top down for a third time preliminary results give him a commanding lead with most of the ballots counted of clinton is in the lead with almost sixty five percent of the vote and outgoing leader dmitri medvedev addressed tens of thousands of supporters who had gathered in central moscow putting himself has already announced his victory in what he has called a free and fair election he also promised the country would continue to modernize

under his strong new mandate. right yet we have one in an open and fair battle but this wasn't just an election of the president it's a test of political maturity and independence and we have shown that you nobody can impose anything on us we have shown our people who are able to tell the desire for renewal in provocations aimed at ruining the russian state. power you have won likely to support of the absolute majority of voters basically in victory we will work only slowly and hard there will be success if we call everyone so i mean i tell you that the interests of our. country yeah i dish i promised you we would win you. i. only have one. well for the latest on what's happening we can cross live parties you got a piece can i thank you both thanks for for being with us i know it's been a long night as we've been covering these election results as they come in as we

saw there mr putin has already claimed victory what is the situation at the moment . well results are still coming in but actually we're now approaching the point of well when all the ballots will be counted according to the central election commission over ninety five percent of the abouts have been processed and according to these preliminary results will put in is in a confident lead with over sixty four percent of faults cast in favor of his candidacy the prime minister has already met with some of his supporters in fact tens of thousands of supporters who've gathered on the money as many square in central moscow you can see behind me right now i know it's empty but just a few hours ago it was absolutely packed with people president was also there after that the prime minister visited his campaign headquarters and talked with his supporters was there and in some of the regions in the video conversations.

with the bus they really let me ask you do you know there were some insulin people but you put them back in their place and these people who are thin need work is the working class but what you did together with your colleagues people who actually work of factories plants and the physical labor your intellectual level turn out to be much much higher and those people who consider themselves to be intellectuals actually want to be. radicals in their thinking some of his supporters i also heard from his press secretary to me that if you score fear is what he had to say. actually it's a very high result definitely we were thinking about your proposal of results we were we were hoping for. victory in the first round but we would never think of such a high risk so it's different that was predicted for so. many shows once again

actually it proves that we can use a colleague or figure number one and vince country and there he's potential is yet is yet to be zero so that he will be able to prove it through his. presidency through. well you got to much of the international attention and here in the country as well has been focused on. but what can you tell us about the other candidates. four other candidates are taking part in this election let's start with united you've gone off who's the head of the communist party he's currently standing just over seventeen percent votes it's not the first time that he's been running for the country's top job actually since the early nineties but he always managed to come second this time and united began of strongly criticised this election saying it was neither fair or transparent the same is being said by the unofficial opposition of war planning to hold mass rallies on monday now there's

also. who is sort of the official opposition he's the head of the liberal democrat party and he's currently standing just over six percent six point two to be exact he's a very controversial eccentric politician often known for his aggressive style but unlike you nigel if you go on and he's actually congratulated logical question with these throw in the results and also savina owner who's the head of the fair russia party the former speaker of the upper house of parliament he's clearly standing. around three point eight percent he's accepted his defeat in this election is also spoken with the prime minister. and you've mentioned three of the four of course this brings us to the campaign of billionaire procurer of much attention given to him with many analysts saying he is

a new force in russian politics where does he stand. really stands out from the other candidates first of all he's new in politics he's a businessman a very successful indeed in fact one of the richest people on the planet and this is the first time that he's taking part in a presidential election and he's already managed to secure just merely seven and a half percent of votes which is quite significant since i gave said this is the first time and compared to the other candidates for example it's already more than . the middle of who ran for president before and actually according to some reports . for me comes second in moscow and st petersburg but of course the figures are still changing and. these are still probably the results and as we've seen all over the world it has been described as one of the most interesting elections russia has ever had what can you say that has been so different about

this election than elections in the past. well this election is being held in a very interesting time in a very different time compared to just four years ago there's a current spike in social and political activity among the public probably did biggest since the ninety's we've seen massive rallies happening starting since the parliamentary election in december amid accusations of fraud and scores of people have been taking to the streets and this led to a massive social campaign for a transparent presidential election and indeed a lot has been done in that sense many analysts of called it sort of a reply of the authorities to the processes currently developing in the country i'm talking about the over ninety thousand polling stations which have been quit with web cameras they've been feeding life videos on the web portals of how the vote was

conducted for internet users to be able to watch online see through ballot boxes have been introduced as well this year and also an unprecedented number of observers hundreds and thousands hundreds thousands rather of people have been monitoring the school including representatives of the unofficial opposition which really has been out of the political spotlight in the past decade or so and now is becoming more active like i said they are planning to hold massive rallies on monday and of course we'll be covering these events extensively as well. will be keep coming to you through the morning as information becomes a they are thanks very much easier for us there. dimitri medvedev has been following the election from putin's campaign headquarters where dr nicholai slogan from the world security institute talked about how support for putin has dropped since the last time he was president. he may have secured victory in the

first round i wote to talk more about this i'm now joined by nikolai's logan political analyst here at the futures campaign headquarters because i thank you so much for being with us so what do you make of this was all around sixty three percent i was it seems to be lower than it was eight years ago but you know who was running well this is more because more than just the be i to solve them for but i think it's quite fair for this business a question is more difficult because with a list of four which work i'm pretty sure in this campaign so i would say that his big victory was of a solvent for he was forgotten quite foolish for then the twice so i think it's a big victory for him time searing. become gnomic political special because of the archons mold problem with the fish because it's a very good result for any politician now to be an election where everywhere so i

think you should be ready for all you really think of that right now he had strong competitors that people were voting actually for him and not for the absence of outside the city well i think. people tried to push it of course obviously some people disappointed some people looking for some new faces and that's for a sofa no no for mikhail prokhorov is a result of that i think putin did the best book you could do in current situations and i think what he did was he worked very hard i would say first time with his political life he campaigned so far he put together very first the style of campaign particularly the last two months and i think partly his victory is there is a lot of is a very strong campaign do you think that this protest movement some precedents that movement against funding of groups and basically it is going to gain more momentum

as we see people come out in the streets. first of all i think it's very healthy. people expressing their opinion and i think it's very healthy for put it to issues a book everybody agreed to see what some people don't want to be a leader for i think it's healthy i think it's good if you will be able to be unifying. people i think the protests will go down if you will be divided there if you will start to do right by russian political hospital even because i'm just now going to i think real care would be there with. our correspondent sarah first was that what can be called the most opulent election headquarters in this presidential race. is the only candidate with no previous experience of running for president but some have been touting him as the next. we haven't had a reaction from the press. because he's running as an independent candidate anyone

in this presidential election say he doesn't have the policy behind him here at the hague school to give us their response this has been a surprise amongst many better than expected result we didn't have his reaction it was you know it's just this. oh. thank you very much a lot of people say that the reason that the opposition haven't succeeded safe is because of the divisions among the two things make up for the beach it could be. the opposition and the police at least people. i think his secret service in your. country started pushing generally they're going to be more and more people who will be. voting for you mark probert my dear might be their candidate for next to march because he's the guy who can actually there's

both has the. experience that's important more. has only recently appeared on russia's political stage but according to his supporters this has actually been to his advantage we talked to the head of prokhorov media group and he says the billionaire represents a younger more ambitious generation. he is new to symbolize the new rules for the new russia is some vision to be absolutely new and fresh in comparison to the soviet union. or other candidates. and putin as well so. from all the stylish solid elite and. then you know any more leaders of the younger generation michael crawford is me. his ambition this is cold and i think

this is the new russia we all dream of well. on their own can we have very strong candidate michael crawford got on the other hand we care not democratic groups not enough do not recruits and people really choose their fortunately just to say no to kill. the gold for anybody the frost more than put it on the including prof wrote i think some of them were voting for zyuganov followed. of the spied prokhorov undeniable business credentials some foreign executives are also welcoming the prospect of letting your putin's return earlier we talked to a leading businessman a peter scholar who told us putin's track record is very attractive to people who seek to invest in my country. if i would have had a vote i would have voted for poorly i have been living here in russia twelve years

and i think that all candidates were quite interesting and good about what would have made me to vote for courtney was that first of all he has a good track record he has that realized the country he stopped with war and he has started reforms in social and efficiency field corruption field which are not yet finished the other candidates have been. less credible in this way but the debate has to be right before the election so i think nobody has been censored but i would have probably voted as two thirds of all gratia for poor. archies washington correspondent and has been monitoring how the media abroad has been treating the elections she says that much of the coverage has suggested that this is the beginning of the end of a potent political career despite his strong showing. before the elections even

started the underlying message in the media here was that those were going to be unfair elections most of the coverage is focused on the discontent with the litter shape among the washes and here is a very telling headline the beginning of the end of putin but inside the weekly you read about the surge of the middle class under who having first become consumers have now become citizens points out be awesome or there's a great deal of critique here but then you come across the table which would make for a pretty good resume for any presidential candidate g.d.p. per person in russia more than doubled in the last twelve years private housing polls doubled the number of course tripled tourist travel abroad more than doubled the number of internet users increased almost five hundred times but again despite the part of our russia's achievements under his rule journalists will focus on discontent indices id's citing pollsters which lay around forty percent of russians

don't trust prime minister putin then it makes you think what may be strange if everyone were happy with the government but interesting in the latest polls i've seen forty one percent of americans strongly disapprove of president obama and the word was exact exactly strongly so yes this content among the rushes. in losing losing popularity those are the things that the media here are focusing on maybe vision mass protests again before the elections even started the underlying message here was that those were going to be on fair elections was also interesting about the coverage everybody knows that within is the most popular politician in russia but at the same time there seems to be some like of respect for the choice that russians have made but also lumping all media agree on when covering the opposition movements and all that is that russia's begin to pay attention and show that they care there's another issue the media are looking at of course and that is the u.s. russia relations with the new old. president putin they mentioned this chemistry

that existed between presidents obama and medvedev and prime minister future president putin has kind of a hawk whose response to certain u.s. policies has been blunt sharp and at times unpleasant for washington and they raise questions about the reset where it's going foreign journalist actually asked prime minister putin about the future and the results of the reset and what he said was basically that reset doesn't need russia has to give up its national interests or not be able to express its use on some crucial international each shoes but despite the differences as the prime minister said the reset has worked and it's dramatically advanced economic ties between the countries in the first place and is determined to continue that policy one of the architects of russia's foreign policy is constantine he says putin's international agenda will be to promote and defend

russia's national interests i do not expect any big changes. i believe that's the most changes will take place in the midst of politics while the foreign policy will continue to keep its continuity for the simple reason the foreign policy all right she's very much beast on russian. national interests and these national interests are different unchanged we want to be a part of the global world we want to be equal participation of the process we are taking place in the global world and we want to be treated fairly and. on the equal grounds russia will continue to promote human rights to promote democracy to one promote the same values reach our shared by most countries in the world. for more international analysis on the russian presidential election we're now joined

live by historian of webster tarpley from washington d.c. mr tarpley thank you for being with us are showing now this has been russia's most transparent election so far do you think that the west will share this view once official results have been announced. well unfortunately the. washington i think with. this is. the perspective we now have is taking some steps. which is such a failure in. some kind of counterweight check the. policies of the. russian people. a tremendous international. it is a historic occasion i would compare it to. forty or. fifty

eight. is in my judgment at most a political leader with an immense political capital. happened in the intervening years. the israeli prime minister here trying. to convince the american. middle east war and i think this is the moment. that political capital. invested. some kind of a diplomatic solution to this we've also got a world economic depression going on so it seems to me that president-elect putin to think

a little bit bigger than what we just heard. that you mentioned. this is. possible. here in russia so do you think might still try and push the country towards instability despite what seems to be a clear victory here. i think it's unfortunately more than likely we have the american ambassador michael mcfaul i guess i can say this from here he's an expert in color revolutions he thinks that he's the the man who brought us the ahrens events in two thousand and four he'd like to cap that with the revolution in moscow but it's very interesting if we look at the actual demonstrations especially in moscow in the last three or four months with the big ones the second largest i think was a demonstration. one hundred thirty thousand people the biggest

as far as i can see was the victory park demonstration in the first week of february which were nationalists who were. anti u.s. embassy interfering this was addressed by people like my friend maksim shevchenko and others and they were interested in stability their line was that the. people like. the orange group that they're interested in really smashing the russian state. but doing some permanent harm to russia so even in the narrow terms of who can mobilize support in moscow alone i think the task for these bright orange. is basically hopeless and they should they should drop it now when it comes to global politics talk about. relations between do you think the

change in russian u.s. relations. i hope that we can get back to the situation we had in two thousand and seven i mean one of the historical merits of putin is that he basically helped to stop making stock a war involving iran a u.s. or israeli or both attacking iran back in two thousand and seven that was the occasion of president putin's visit to work to present in our energy and. i think that's the kind of thing that we could we could hope for the policy of appeasement has been tried and does not work and there is no rational interlocutor or here in washington we have a ruling elite which is in a kind of flight forward sometimes it appears as a war psychosis sometimes it appears as the psychosis of destabilization and meddling in the internal affairs of other countries but the only language these people understand unfortunately is

a strong front and the the idea that they're going to be resisted i'm afraid that's that's where we are now in the quicker everybody understands this the better off we will all be the the all the other alternative brought us the terrible events in libya with one hundred fifty thousand dead if you get these people an inch they will take a mile now real quickly briefly because we're running out of time but could you tell me what you think putin's presidency should focus on next. i think first of all war avoidance in other words a major russian initiative for some kind of diplomatic solution we just heard prime minister netanyahu of israel say there should not be any negotiations involving iran well there should be and russia now have the authority again with the most prestigious political leader in the world at least by my count. would be possible to put that on the agenda the other thing is we've got a world economic depression it hit the u.s. in the british you know way it's hitting europe now it will go on to hit others

don't we need some kind of international economic reform which would not be in the direction of the neo liberal synthesis or i.m.f. shock therapy or the demands of the super rich one percent but rather the broad master of humanity especially in the developing world all right thank you very much that was historian webster tarpley talking to us from washington d.c. thank you for the election has been held against a background of massive street rallies in russia's largest cities but as a member of the protest movement for a fair election mihail. told r.t. the opposition demonstrators are in the minority the result didn't come as a surprise and obviously most of the people share the same scene of the great russian classic that no revolution is worth of a child of. i hope there will be blood on the streets but

obviously we don't agree with this result and unfortunately we are in my minority but you have to consider every minority and this is the only way to democratic country three months show that this city lies to sightsee with. needs can go somewhere and it can grow the only thing it lacks is a position that it was the one solid lead. well that brings you up to date for now we will be continuing with our special coverage of what russia's election here on our team with over ninety five percent of the vote counted for the major push in looks set to become russia's next president i'll be back with the wrap up after the short break i'm going. to.

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the be. the be. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for life you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear sees some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.