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technology innovation all the list of elements around russia we've got the future covered. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so sleek you think you understand it and then something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything is off you you don't. charge the big picture. you can. still. listen to. the list. follow in welcome across talk time peter all about the return of lot of mere putin to the russian presidency how did the campaign change russian politics how will russia transform over the next six years and has

a new dialogue started within society about the country's future. live keep lists to live. across talk a new period in russian politics i'm joined by john laughlin in paris he is director of studies at the institute of democracy and cooperation in london we have married a chef ski she is the chief editorial writer and a columnist at the independent and here in the studio with me is ben eris he is editor in chief of business new europe or a cross talk rose in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want but i'm going to go to you first here in the studio was this election a game changer how was this election different from previous election day it was different in the sense that you know it was a lot more in so much as a person have to play to the gallery in the way that he has done before i think that thinks is a good thing yes i think the big. range is you know up until this election hootin has been above politics and he hasn't been

a politician he was just the president whatever you want to call him however the demonstrations you know he was dictating the debate by saying this is important and then everybody talked about whatever he chose the difference with this election is that he did the demonstrations and pulled them down into the process and then he's lost control of the debate and so he's become. responsible accountable in the way that he never has before which is not to say that he's responsible accountable in the way that we have in the west nevertheless it was the beginning of real politics if you like in russia just the beginning ok joe what do you think about that at the beginning of real politics in russia because i mean i wouldn't want to go as far as dead but i do like that there is a dialogue happening here when i worry about is that the opposition won't engage mr putin once he takes office again that's a worry here but there certainly is a conversation going on in russia now. yeah i mean it's possible and certainly the western media have made an awful lot of these demonstrations although we should

never forget that they. in principle represent a fairly small if not tiny select section of the russian electorate my view on the result is that it's actually a mixed result of course it's a victory for putin it doesn't help at all the new era because clearly he's been in power in one form or another since the year two thousand or indeed since nine hundred ninety nine but it's a mixed result for him for two reasons firstly because of course the turnout was not particularly high that can have various explanations either apathy or a sense that nothing will change. and the other reason why it's a mixed result is that his popularity which of course is undeniable is at least in part due to the weakness of his opponents are not wishing to detract or rain on his parade because i think he is a very considerable statesman but the fact is he is also blessed with having weak opponents and i think one of the reasons why there might be a change that the kind that ben has referred to an evolution in russian politics is

for the very banal reason that the memory of the one nine hundred ninety s. is of course fading when he was elected back at the beginning of his first presidential term he got seventy percent of the vote in two thousand and that was largely because he was seen as someone who would take control the memory of those years is going and now he will have to fight on his own record he cannot and he cannot for long continue to preserve preventive presented himself well because he and i think i think that's a good thing you know if you think i think that's good i mean every politician should have to defend their record marriage of course you see you marry so you know what you think about i mean that's that's perfectly fair that's normal politics ok . absolutely that's normal politics i mean i agree partly with ben and i agree partly with john too i think there's been a fatal weakness of the opposition which some people will blame on the way that putin has governed all root for the last twelve years. other people and i

think i would agree with them would say that it's been simply a weakness of persistence since the fall of communism but it simply takes a very long time for real politics to develop and i think we have seen quite a landmark on the way to real politics through this campaign they want to jump in there i mean one of the things i think is very interesting here is that it's been an enormous amount of focus on the liberal up of opposition which fair enough that western media likes to cover but one issue i think it has not been covered enough and i can be other half of the story is the silent majority is beginning to speak beginning to stir a little bit here this is the conversation i'm talking about i think you know i mean all of us have said in war one way or another it's a process it's evolution you know the russians changing in the ninety's it was a basket case and chaotic today it's more or less a normal country and you have before you had an intellectual opposition that was

arguing that in principle now you have a popular opposition and what that means is that people in the ninety's they were concerned with surviving and today they have a job or career children rates going shooting up and they're starting to worry about normal things like property rights government services education pensions and they want to be more say this is a process i mean i think we can rule. springs change and what we're talking about because i mean even the people who are protesting you know they want to preserve their prosperity and that's key to them and so nobody wants the chaos of a violent regime change indeed they are actually quite happy to keep it in inches. but they want him to be more accountable to listen to him so now it becomes very interesting going forward is putin has little to no avail i mean anyone just things that i find problematic about the opposition is that anybody but putin attitude which is very counterproductive john larkin if i can go to you because every even the potency tractors we needed before the election he was by far the most popular

politician in russia but you could still having said that you still can't have a slogan anyone but putin i mean it's contradictory and it's certainly counterproductive ok what i worry about is that they want to want to engage the new president well when they say that it's a real it's a rift it underlines their weakness doesn't it because that's the only thing they agree on in the western media we concentrate exclusively on the liberal opposition but the fact is that when you look at the blogosphere and when you leave certain circles in moscow or something to the main opposition to putin is not liberal at all it is precisely illiberal it is more nationalistic it is more anti western it is more conservative than the people who demonstrated at christmas time and you know it's only in this distorting prism of western analysis that the liberal opposition have linsky outlook and so on are put forward as if they were the only people opposing him they are not there yet yesterday's opposition are the biggest

opposition party as we know is the communist party ok mary franco you wrote a very interesting article right before the election and you talk about a generational divide and i think it's very interesting here because there's a lot of young people here and it's already been mentioned this program about the one nine hundred ninety s. ok how bad in one nine hundred ninety was well they don't remember that ok and maybe they their parents haven't been able to convey it too well because no one lot of people don't want to remember about those miserable years how do you think this is going to play out because i've seen a lot of young people who are even around me very idealistic and they do like some of the ideas of the opposition but are they going to be totalistic and not being engaging in a new political reality. well i think there's two things that i'd like to say here i mean first of all that there are many layers in this generation or differentiation in russia today there is the generation that remembers the bad old days of communism and then there's the group that remembers as it were the bad old

days of the ninety's and then there are there are the younger people who were spared both of those and who now seem to be looking forward and wanting to engage in politics and who've been saluted in this by the social media by the internet and by all the things that didn't exist before which allow people to speak to each other and exchange ideas who are physically in very different places so that's the first thing i think it's worth saying. the second thing i think is that the the ideals if you like of the new generation are based on a decent standard of living this is something that the previous two groups the groups the ninety's and the groups to the soviet era groups really didn't have and i think while a lot of people in russians in the political sphere were speaking about the effect or the affinity between the situation in russia and the situation in the arab

countries which gave rise to the arab spring and they said well you know we have a lot in common with that because we had some political stagnation we didn't have complete freedom of speech etc etc but at the same time often the same people are saying yes but they're completely different from us because they are a lot of unemployed undereducated young people especially young men who have no prospects and whose only solution as it were was to go out in the streets and protest we have very different prospects and we don't want revolution we want something we want a change. but we don't want a revolution we don't want to break things down then it's an aspirational evolution that people are talking about here yeah i mean this is about is not to do with the arab spring i think there were this is mary made the point i mean it you know there is fear and it's driven a quarter of the population in any one of those countries was under the age of

twenty five and i was majority voting for it and in russia the information sorry the unemployment rate is a twenty year low and this revolution as such is being driven by the middle class middle aged people professional people that have benefited over the last twelve years into the going out into much yeah no i mean you know ironically the people protesting on the liberal side are some of the main beneficiaries of all the changes that have happened but this is why this is going to begin to revolutions along with this is going to be very civilized and it's a question i really can't gauge and engaging the government and the government needs to engage back you know i mean that's the sea change here is is that the government up until this point has been concerned with the elites with getting the economy back on its feet which is talking about big companies monetize what have you and we've now gone past that point and it needs to start engaging with the people in the small companies and employment and start raising standards of living and securing property rights and dealing with governments and since you know so

normal i suspect the more aspects here ok do you think we'll get back before going to the break you think mr putin will deliver well it's difficult to say i think short answer is yes he has to. i think you'll find a lot to criticize about it but then you know the twenty years i've been covering russia this place is continuously gone forward i mean it's never going to magically in the p.r. it's been awful but it's made continuous progress which is why we have this middle class complaining today project we're going to go to a short break now and after that break will continue our discussion on russia's new president's day our.

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twelve for the. science technology innovation hall believes developments from around russia we've done the future coverage. can. lead. to prosecutors' about to mind you we're talking about the results of the presidential election in russia. live can. live. john i'd like to broaden this out a little bit here we don't have much reaction coming from western capitals about the return of law to me or putin obviously we saw in media that they weren't very happy about it and governments around the world of pretty much sneered at this election though it's probably the most straight and transparent one russia has ever

had and it was by a mere putin that would benefit if with a good clean election in only suffer if there were major irregularities what's next now i mean is anybody going to call that amir putin say hey vlad congrats we'll look forward to seeing you with g eight. well there might be a phone call from peking or somewhere like that but indeed you're right in your question to suggest that the real a reaction from the western leaders is going to be pretty tepid we know what their reaction is going to be because they started to give their reaction back in september as soon as putin announced that he was going to run for the presidency and within a nanosecond the warm words that had been directed at medved if the last four years were instantly dropped and russia was once again in the doghouse and since then the coverage and the political comment the comment our political leaders on the russian election has think it's fair to say been systematically negative and sarcastic and condescending every single report that i've seen this morning about the election

victory. couples it with allegations of fraud the same allegations of course which were made systematically after december and whatever the truth of those allegations . i don't think the reporters are generally very interested in the truth of them the fact is that they stick and since the election in december since the list of local election december the opposition strategy and the west strategy has been to make that allegation stick at all costs knowing that putin would be reelected and therefore trying to sabotage his presidency from the very beginning by making these claims and trying to tarnish his election as having been unfairly gamed you know larry unfortunately i think that the go ahead john finish up quick. and i was going to say unfortunately that had been something of a sea change i think once obama was elected so from the end of two thousand and eight early two thousand and nine the relations were pretty good really from that point of view i'm talking about relations with the west but which by by the main by the way is by no means the whole of russian foreign policy but that's what we're

going to talk about but i think we'll now go back to the period before that because it's clear that the west absolutely hates. mary if i go to one of the things i found very interesting i remember i was interviewed on b.b.c. and there was some one thing going on between the united states and i and in russia and i was asked by the correspondent said you know you know putin doesn't really he's very harsh with his words when he talks about foreign policy particularly united states and i said well it's kind of popular among russians and his message unlike yeltsin unlike what about joe putin actually cares about public opinion at home ok he doesn't care if what americans think about him or brits or anybody else he really doesn't care he cares about russians ok i mean is this one of the things that irritates the west because you know viremia putin is sensitive to their sensibilities and their red lines and all of that. i'm not sure they even think about it that far i mean i think that what is often missing. i think the words often missing from the western view of putin and russian politics is the idea that

there is a domestic audience to play to in russia as there is in america as there are in in europe. the idea that putin when when he's speaking before the election is speaking in an election campaign context is something that is simply it's not taken into account when you talk when you look at the words that obama is using at the moment the meetings that he's having the speech that he gave yesterday for instance to the israel lobby in washington these are election moves to be seen and that context and yet when people talk about putin and look at how he behaves and look at what he says they completely disregard the fact that he was in a korean action situation i saw only one report in connection with the russian

stance on syria which said you have to remember that putin speaking to voters before an election and that this sort of thing goes down well in russia and i think it's it's unfortunate we've got to get used to the fact that there is politics there is public opinion in russia it's interesting we saw my russian friends know don't listen to these republicans you know because that are just campaigning you know there are a lot of you keeping world later but what about foreign investors like her. marriage and said i mean this should be a shock in the west and so much is putin is playing to an audience he's delivering a message word because he wants them to vote for him this is you know the democratic process and so much is action why is there with seventy three against him they hate him i think it's because there's a clash of systems here i mean the assumption behind. criticism is that russia is not democratic the problem is not so much that russia is not democratic it's managed democracy system whereby you've got

a transition and the debate that we should be having that we're not even beginning as the west is looking and saying russia's political system is rubbish but discounting the people we're discussing putin it's not you know we patient the same system which is full and open for democracy but i think the united states that it's it is maybe naive or at least it's not what happening here what we're talking about is a transition if we accept this economic the need for economic transition over time what putin's arguing is that there's a need for a political transition to. this is not the minister where the president just returned with right to seven percent of the vote one hundred percent of the duma. and it's not ukraine either which is but then you know there's the ukrainian it experiment where they did it for political. chaos and it's chaos and war over the globe which is clearly going to steal the country back in october and the elections there and i think it is looking at these new situations and saying that we need a transition there's no point introducing civil society if we don't have the

institutions to ensure the management of the economy afterwards and you know you can argue about the pros and cons of it but no one's even beginning this debate about what he's attempting to do and it's a very interesting debate the change in political system here is unprecedented in history and all the west can do is like your system is rubbish it's not our system and so we just dismiss that i guess and i guess john the if russia were really to imitate the united states or to have super pacs right. just by i don't really agree that the i don't really agree that the reason the real reason for this bad blood is that russia's electoral system is rubbish i'm not sure if that was what ben wanted to say but i certainly don't agree with it no i think he said i think it was really saying it was that's the caricature in the west. but i think the truth is the truth is that is really very uncomfortable indeed and that is that in europe and

possibly in america but certainly in europe in western europe democracy is in very evident retreat it is we in the european union who are living in a system of managed democracy although i wouldn't even put the word democracy in that we are after all in an organization where the greek government was overthrown at the very moment when it said it wanted to have a referendum on its bailout plans two countries have been effectively placed in political administration every treaty that is new that is that every new treaty that is. that is signed is not submitted to referendum for ratification and europe does everything to prevent such referendums we are at the people who are in retreat we're in a negative transition if you like and i think that might be one of the reasons why russia is so hated it's a sort of it's europe's guilty conscience in a sense which is that opera which is in operation here mary i think it's been we had a really interesting discussion here and i think ben has really had

a really important point is that you know i've lived here for twelve years and watched evolution here i've seen pendulums move back and forth a little bit of tweaking this tweaking now we know that they're going to change the way governors are elected again threshold for political parties i mean they are thinking about these things here there are people are protesting thing that they want change we see the political elite reacting to this i mean i guess for some people he put it all in russia it's the same faces that's the issue that they have a problem with. yes and i think this is one of the judgments maybe that was made in september when. when needed if nominated. for them to be the united russia candidate for president again because i think there is going back to the generational issue there is actually a big big difference in background. the way of looking at the world between britain and italy and you and i think that europeans and americans maybe were happier

with the sort of stance and the sort of language that mediated was using. and i think that as it were the new generation of russians or at least not an extreme nationalist new generation of russians also felt more comfortable with maturity and then they feel with cotton and that was one of the reasons for the great disappointment in the way that it expressed itself in protests through the autumn after the parliamentary elections and probably that we'll see later today ok then if i go to you before we end of the program and you're in touch with the business community obviously what is this was a dissipated this result and happily can you explain the reasons yeah i mean it's stability that's what it's in office i mean business not so concerned with you know democracy an expression of. people's desires they want stability they want to continue the economic boom that's been driven by. rising incomes of the

consumers that they can sell to them and they want predictability of what's going to happen they want to see more reforms and with putin you know it's but it's on that in you know we had twelve years of prosperity and so we look forward to another twelve years of prosperity and so i think they're pretty happy nevertheless i mean well is it going to be is it going to be just as easy this time for is getting more difficult i mean a new a new economy there's a consensus amongst all the liberals and you are in the mix model isn't needed. having said that though i think the investors on the whole you know provided this protest movement doesn't get violence you know that it grinds away at it in which is their stated aim then this is very healthy and this is also what russia needs for long term prosperity otherwise we're facing the prospect of stagnation and of course no one's going to notice for it so i think you know and nice gradual transition the business community is very happy and i'm seeing i mean already seeing for direct investment picking up ok john i'm going to give you the last word

here what are the next six years going to be like twenty seconds well i think that the biggest challenge is probably the judicial system and you know when you're talking about foreign investment and the business climate i think that's what the that's the kind of stability which is the most important it's justice from the judicial system and justice from the local administration and i think those are the two big areas where russia is probably at its weakest that is the biggest challenge and then of course there are huge international challenges above all the international monetary system which is in chaos and needless to say the middle east so it's an uncertain world but i think that the occasional certain well certain world of people and this is when mr putin wants to deal with here many thanks to my guest today in paris london and here in the studio and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember crosstalk. download

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