American Enterprise Institute

March 10, 2008

[edited transcript from audio tapes]

8:45 a.m.	Registration and Breakfast
9:00	Welcome:	Leon Aron, AEI
9:15	Panelists:	Oleg Buklemishev, advisor to former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, People’s Democratic Union
		Vladimir V. Kara-Murza, former presidential campaign manager for Vladimir Bukovsky; federal political council member, Union of Right Forces
		Boris Nemtsov, former first deputy prime minister; cofounder of Union of Right Forces
		Vladimir Ryzhkov, former Duma deputy; cochair, Republican Party of Russia
	Discussant:	Michael McFaul, Hoover Institution
	Moderator:	Leon Aron, AEI
12:00 p.m.	Adjournment

Proceedings:

 Leon Aron:  -- and welcome.  Undoubtedly, people will be struggling in -- Monday morning.  Well, first of all, before I get to the participants and thank them, let me thank a few other people for bringing off this event.  Dany Pletka, who is the director of Foreign Policy and Defense Studies and the vice president, has given us a great deal of support and her expertise in organizing this.  The lectures and seminars have always been marvelous in housing and organizing these events and they have done it again.  Most of all, of course, my thanks to Kara Flook who I think in the past two, three months has not had a day when she was not dealing with this event, but she has done it very tirelessly and ably.  I am very grateful, Kara.

 Now, as you glance at the title of this conference and at the list of the participants, you might ask why does AEI give platform to the top leaders of the Russian political opposition.  And it is a fair question.  As someone who has been in charge of watching Russia for AEI for the past 16 years, I can tell you that I do not think we have had an event of this kind before nor, frankly, would I have thought of organizing this type of event any time between 1992 and probably 2003. 

The reason, though, for organizing it now could be illustrated by this photograph that has made rounds on the Internet.  Some say it is a montage, some say it is a genuine photo of a bus stop in Moscow.  I probably do not need to translate in this audience but it says, “March 2nd, the election of the President Dmitri Medvedev.”  Now, this to me is --

Male Voice:  [Inaudible]

Leon Aron:  Was it in Perm?  Okay.  See, I did not know that.  But it was ostensibly taken in Perm.  In any case, I think this is so emblematic of the utterly brazen fraudulence of the political process in Russia today and where the elections, as one of the former participants of one such panels mentioned, elections should not be called elections, they should be called voting, not vybory but golosovanie. 

This is the state of affairs where the state has reabsorbed all the independent political institutions where it silenced them, subverted them or, at least, weakened them.  And where today mass media, at least most of them, would be very strongly advised against covering an event of this kind and where the parties and movements represented by the speakers on this platform have essentially been shut out of the political process and certainly of the exposure to the media.

 So how stable is this arrangement and how long will the state of affairs go on, what role the opposition should play and what tactics it should use and towards what goals mostly - is one of the group of questions that I have posed to the speakers, and I’m looking forward to their answers. 

Now, there has been slight change in the line up.  As of last midnight when Kara and I conferred with Vladimir Ryzhkov who did arrive from Moscow but was delayed at the JFK and was supposed to land this morning at Reagan -- we have not heard from him but I’m confident that he will be here.  He was supposed to open the conference with Boris Nemtsov giving the concluding word and then Professor McFaul speaking at the very end, giving us his observations.  Now assuming that Vladimir Ryzhkov will come, as I’m almost certain he will, we decided to put all the panelists now for you here, on the panel, and we will, in fact, start with Boris Nemtsov who graciously agreed to speak first.

You have the biographies of all the participants in your folders.  I do not want to take time to go over them.  Let me just say that, of course, Boris Nemtsov is a former first deputy prime minister of Russia, one of the leading figures in the Democratic Liberal Movement, governor of Nizhny Novgorod from 1991 to 1997 when he was brought to Moscow to become the first deputy prime minister, a founding member and former co-chair of the Union of Rightist Forces. 

Next is Professor McFaul -- I will just go in this order.  Mike McFaul, a very good and old friend, is a professor at Stanford, a fellow at Hoover and has probably five more titles which I will not go into.  He is the principal adviser on Russia to Senator Obama’s campaign. 

Vladimir Kara-Murza is a member of the leadership of the Union of Rightist Forces.  He was in 2003, as far as I know, the only joint candidate in that election running from both Yabloko and SPS in a Moscow district and given whom he ran against, he has done remarkably well there.  And he is a known analyst, an essay writer on the current Russian affairs.  Given the topic of our conversation, an additional qualification for Vladimir Kara-Murza is that he was the campaign manager for yet another abortive campaign, this one by Vladimir Bukovsky -- campaign for the president of Russia which, as you probably know, did not get that far at all. 

Oleg Buklemishev was in a similar position as the deputy campaign manager, national campaign manager for Mikhail Kasyanov’s campaign, Foreign Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.  And Oleg’s connection to Kasyanov goes all the way to Kasyanov’s being prime minister where he was his deputy chief of staff.

Again, there are many other things that you will find in the bios but since we are now going into the more compact format, I will stop here and I will ask Boris Nemtsov to give us his presentation.  One more thing I would like to show you, Boris’ most recent of his many claims to fame is a remarkable article called “Putin: The Results” or “Putin: The Final Summary,” which he co-authored with somebody who comes and speaks here rather often, Vladimir Milov, also a good colleague and friend. 

I think there is now a brochure which looks like this but, of course, I and probably most of you have gotten it from grane.ru and of course, this is a remarkable document, a fallout from which was that Boris Nemtsov suspended his membership in the leadership of the Union of Rightist Forces ostensibly or so I think, to spare that organization from yet another act of revenge.  And with that, I go to Boris Nemtsov.

Boris Nemtsov:  I thank you very much, Leon, for such kind presentation.  Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  Really, Leon mentioned this book which is published in Moscow in Novaya Gazeta where Anna Politkovskaya worked for a long time, where Mr. Gorbachev is one of the shareholders.  But what is funny that it was impossible to distribute this book in Russia because all of the companies who are involved in such kind of business refused to sell it in the country.  That is why we find just one kiosk in Moscow in the Pushkin Square – Kiosk of Novaya Gazeta - where we distribute it and sell more than 2000 copies.  This is Guinness record, it seems to me, because one kiosk for such big country.  I tried to explain during my introduction why it has happened and I want to talk about three points. 

First is Putin’s results, which is a great mystery for Russians.  It seems to me more mystery than for Americans that for Russians, people believe that he saved the country, that economic growth is huge, living standards increased dramatically, Russia becomes super power, Russia controls the world, et cetera, just one enemy of Russia is the United States.  This is main message from Kremlin and from official propaganda and we decided to publish real and honest information about his results.

Yes, indeed, economic growth for his presidency is huge, about 70 percent of GDP.  Yes, indeed the level of poverty reduced twice and real salary and pensions increased.  Yes, Russia has a lot of money in Central Bank Reserves, about $500 billion.  Russia has profits of the budget during last eight years.  All of these information appeared, I do not know how many times per day in the first channel of Russian TV and in all of the officials but we decided to describe not only this official statistics but reality. 

The main result of his presidency is unlimited corruption - unlimited.  Russia is on the 143rd place among 160 countries due to transparency information.  Of course, bribes exist in my country for centuries but if you compare corruption in ‘90s for example and our days, ‘90s tycoons and corrupt bureaucrats look like small boys compared to what happens now - small boys.  We described situation inside Gazprom for example and what is absolutely crucial is absolutly underground privatization of the most expensive property like Gazprombank, like NTV, one of the most powerful TV companies in the country. 

For example Gazprom-Media where NTV is included, they brought friends of Putin - Mr. Kovalchuk bought for $166 million and capitalization of the company is $7.5 billion.  That is why now Putin -- nevertheless, what is his real position?  But now he controls so-called Putin media which includes NTV, Fifth channel, REN TV, TNT, Ekho Moskvy, City FM and about 100 newspapers like Komsomolskaya Pravda, like Izvestia and a lot of regional ones.  This empire looks larger than empire of Berezovsky and Gusinsky together.  This is real strength and real opportunity to organize propaganda you want.  Even without any position inside Kremlin and in the White House, I mean Russian White House. 

We describe situation in the army.  In the West, a lot of people believed that during Putin presidency, army becomes stronger.  This is lie.  Because of corruption and manipulation of military industry, unfortunately military order reduced.  For example, during last eight years, Putin bought just three air crafts to the army, just three, and about 60 tanks.  That’s it.  A lot of missiles which have already invested, there is no opportunity for them to be in charge.  That is why Russian submarines become without any missiles at all.  And he spend 100 billion rubles to build so called new kind of submarines but this is just metal, no more.

Infrastructure declined.  Roads -- you know that we have two problems.  I do not want to talk about one, I mean, foolish people, let me talk about roads, right.  Reduction of amount of roads in the country during last eight years - 50,000 kilometers we lose - roads. 

The most crucial point for Russian economy and for Russian future is the population.  There is means [sounds like] of that during the Yeltsin time, Russia lost a lot of people.  Yeah, that is true.  We lost about two million of people.  During Putin presidency we lost 3.5 million.  The population level is huge not only because of low level of birth making but because of that, Russian men lives average about 59 years - just 59 - like in African countries.  That is why and nothing happened in health care and nothing happened in improvement of pension system.  We talked about crisis in pension system and Russia looked to real decline pension, pensions during future 10 years.  Now we have about 20 percent of the average salary our pensions but unfortunately in 2025, we will get probably about 15 percent which is real level of very, very poor people - very, very poor. 

Well, all of these results are one of the biggest mysteries of Russia and there were no any discussion in the newspapers, no any discussion, of course, on TV and no discussion in roundtable with wide participation of our specialist opposition and pro-Kremlin guys.  Their behavior looks like nothing happened.  There is no such kind of book.  One of the tasks of the opposition I believe that it is to explain people what does mean Putinism.  That is why we have to travel throughout the country to meet with people and to explain what happened in reality.

Second - elections.  Two jokes about election; one is a real story.  One month ago, I met my school friend.  He is a professor of Chemistry, very smart guy, Andrei Prenchetev [phonetic], he said, “How interested is an election in the United States.  Nobody knows who will win - Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, maybe McCain.”  “Boris, as far as I know, elections in this country, will happen on 2nd of March,” he said.  I said, “No, no, it will be in autumn.  In the 2nd of March, it will be election in Russia.”  “Really, are you sure?”  Professor of Chemistry asked me such kind of question. 

Really, months ago, maybe months and half ago, people do not care about elections at all.  No information, no discussion, Medvedev refused to take part in debates, you know, 85 percent of TV time, was devoted to his speeches and his travelings throughout the country.  Two clowns, you know, Zhironovsky and Bogdanov, talk with each other, nobody knows what was the topic for discussion but sometimes one fight another and that is it, right.  Well, nobody discussed about the future of the country, about domestic policy, about foreign policy, nothing. 

Second -- huge manipulation and fraud during campaign, especially during parliamentary elections.  Just few examples, I was a governor, like Leon mentioned, of Nizhnynovgorod, our neighbor region was Mordovia.  If you know this region Mordovia, this is the heart of the city -- this is not Caucasus region.  This is in the heart of the country.  Mr. Merkushkin is the governor of Mordovia; he is a governor from Yeltsin time, approximately for 20 years.  Results in the parliamentary election in few districts, the United Russia overcome 100 percent in three districts, overcome with great difficulties.  In two of them, they got 109 percent and in two, 104.  We sent a lot of letters to the court, how it happened, that we explained as blah, blah, blah.  No response.

Chechnya - turnout in Chechnya was approximately 99 percent like in the Stalin time and the United Russia got approximately 99 percent.  The SPS was in the second place.  We got 0.07; two Chechens voted for us, two Chechens.  We are the second, you know, silver.  Wow.  But the most exciting thing is in Ingushetia; population of Ingushetia is just 160,000 of people and due to elections --

Male Voice:  Number of wards.

Boris Nemtsov:  Of course.  Number of ward is about 160,000 and Mr. Zyazikov who is the president of this Caucasus Republic, he reported that about 99 percent voted.  After that what happened?  About 100,000 of people sent a letter to the general prosecutor that “We did not vote.  Mr. Chaika, we did not vote.”  More than half of the population said that they didn’t take part in the elections.  No response.  Of course, the United Russia got 98 or 98.5, something like that, that is why nobody believes -- everybody knows in Russia what happened, that is why nobody believes that there is not elections. 

Everybody remembers what Stalin said:  “It does not matter how you vote, how do you vote?  The most important thing is how to calculate of that.”  And Putin knows that very carefully that is why it does not matter what is the official result.  We argue with each other how many votes Mr. Medvedev not get from the people but get from main officer of the country.  That is it.

We have such kind of elections in the country.  It was Soviet time that is why you have to compare what happened now with Breshnev time, for example.  Stagnation.  Stagnation is now and stagnation was in the Breshnev time.  Of course, such kind of turnout like 99 percent and results like 99 percent -- this is real Soviet, real Soviet result.  That is why this is not an election - nor discussion. 

I was very surprised when my friend Kasyanov was fired because what was the problem for Putin, Mr. Kasyanov; if everything has already solved, what is the problem??  But they are so weak and they are so afraid about maybe some news, about some honest information of what happened in the country that they fired him.  Fired and nothing happened, right. 

Well, anyway, perspectives -- what we have now, we have double power situation.  Experts who were involved in Russian deals are the ones who some time said that Putin still controls situation and Leon always said such kind of thing and some others said in another way.  But, what is my view?  First of all, double power situation is a real dangerous for the country and for the world.  There is special word in Russian language, the word is “smuta”.  I do not know how to translate in English --

Male Voice:  Time of trouble.

Boris Nemtsov:  Time of trouble.  Smuta is bad; smuta smells better than trouble - not better but realistically I can say.  Well, smuta.  Last time we hear smuta in ’93.  Maybe you remember that it was conflict between Yeltsin from one side and Hezbollah from the parliament from another.  What happened everybody knows because of CNN.  Well, CNN showed tanks on the bridge and destroying the parliament building.  Before that smuta was conflict between Gorbachev and Yeltsin and you know what happened at that time.  It was at the beginning of ‘90s.  Before that, it was smuta after resignation of Nikolai II, in 1916, Bolshevik Revolution and at the beginning smuta from Boris Godunov in 1612, right.

This is real troubling time for the country and I do not believe that such double power system is stable for a long time.  Some observers said that Medvedev is very weak, he is loyal and he has no experience to run the country and to run something else that is why, indeed, power will still belong to Mr. Putin.  Well, I think that may be this is true but not for long time.  I will explain you why. 

There are two reasons why I believe that finally Medvedev will control the country and will wean Putin.  First reason is Russian tradition which is absolutely important to understand.  Russian tradition for hundred and hundred years is that who controls Kremlin controls the country - not even controls Kremlin, who are in Kremlin, who has office in Kremlin and main office in Kremlin.  That is why we talk with Andre Illarionov not long ago and we discussed - you know, he is a great guy - we discussed what will be the office for Mr. Medvedev.  It was our discussion.  And of course I agree that Medvedev will mean nothing if he will finally get an office very close to Putin and Putin like prime minister will stay in Kremlin.  But as far as I know, situation now looks quite clear.  Putin started to renovate his office in the White House, which is good news, and they decided to put Mr. Medvedev to Putin office in Kremlin, which is good news. 

Second, why I think that Medvedev finally will be a real president and will control the country is Russian Constitution.  Of course, during Putin time, Russian constitution was broken and was destroyed completely because - if you look at constitution, Russia is democracy - Russia is a country with human rights, with absence of censorship, et cetera.  But if you look at the charter which concerns the presidential power, Russian president due to constitution controls the country. 

For example, he can fire Prime Minister without permission of the parliament.  Just sign a decree, print and sign, that is it.  You can know your own secretary, you can print yourself.  And the prime minister will be fired.  Second, he -- during the last rules, the president will appoint governors, control foreign policy and army.  He is the chief of the army.  That is why I think that these two points I’m mean traditions and constitution give a real privilege for Mr. Medvedev. 

That is why there are two scenarios from my point of view.  First, Putin will be prime minister but not for a long time.  For example, for a few months, he will appoint maybe some key persons to the business position because he is one of the top businessmen in Russian Federation - everybody knows about that - and maybe to look how Medvedev will operate and resign himself.  It is the first scenario which is very peaceful and I think that very fruitful for Russia with real hope for future.

Second, which is worse, they will fight each other.  Fight for what reason?  First of all, profit and money.  For example, what kind of discussion?  First of all, who controls Gazprom?  You know, this is a key question for every president in the country - who controls Gazprom?  Second, who controls pipelines and the export of oil?  Who controls media? 

Media - this is very, very serious question.  For example, the First Channel -- formerly, First Channel is a joint stock company with control of the government - about 51 percent of the shares belong to the government - and 49 -- nobody knows but Abramovich bought it from Berezovsky.  And now, nobody knows who control these private shares.  But if you look at the charter of this joint company, you immediately recognize that the general manager of the First Channel, the most powerful channel in the country, is appointed by the president of Russian Federation.  This is joint stock company, nevertheless, who owns this company, the president will appoint. 

The Second Channel looks more complicated because the government has the control but I think that it will be a real serious conflict and stories. 

Finally, I think that such kind of vertical of the power will destroy it because somebody will be closer to Medvedev, somebody will stay with Putin and all such kind of instability will lead to chaos which is real problem.  I do not believe that Putin is so stupid to not to understand that.  I think that he understands that; of course, he understands that.  That is why I hope that the first opportunity will happen.  Nobody knows how much time it takes but, finally, we will get Mr. Medvedev like the president. 

In the west, there is opinion that Medvedev is liberal.  He is liberal.  He said that freedom is better than non-freedom; that we have to organize open society, et cetera, et cetera.  You know, Russia is a Byzantine country; words mean nothing.  Maybe in this country, words mean something.  In Russia, Putin -- I do not know how many times he talked about freedom, democracy, private ownership, that Yukos is the best company in our country.  Words mean nothing, that is why do not pay attention to some words.  My view is that Medvedev has now his own political fundamental views and ideas; that is why everything depends on economic situation and social situation.

If commodities - commodities play an unlimited role in Russian policy - if commodities, I mean prices, will be like now, I do not think that some changes will happen in the country because profit of the budget, unlimited opportunity to increase pensions, salaries, et cetera, will give a chance for Kremlin on the full power to run the country without any changes. 

Reforms happen when money is over.  If you have unlimited amount of money, why should you change your policy?  That is why do not believe that they will change something. 

What happened in Russia?  Why Putin is still popular?  There is invisible contract between nation and Putin.  Nation closed its eyes about corruption, about situation in the army, about pensions, about everything, about censorship, about political prisoners, about everything.  People close their eyes.  Putin promised to increase salaries and pension - that is it.  We are loyal because you increase level of our life, 10 percent per year - that is it.  If Medvedev will sign the same contract, right - not of course openly but invisible - if he signs it, nothing happens.  Something will happen if they will face economic problems and face financial problems first of all.  In this case, of course, liberalization and democratization of Russia look more promising than in previous eight years.

Last point - opposition.  Unfortunately I can say, very sad story but I can say that opposition - I mean liberal and democratic opposition, first of all - opposition is very weak and very splitted.  What we have - we have minimum, five organizations:  Yabloko Party; SPS Party - Kasyanov and Oleg will talk about that - and Garry Kasparov, right; plus some NGO organizations; and some human rights organizations but very splitted and very weak.

I do not know what should happen in the country to join each other, I do not know, frankly.  Well, we decided to start processes of unification and we decided to organize in April a conference in St. Petersburg and Maxim Reznik was one of the men - he is the chief of St. Petersburg, Yabloko - was one of the men who proclaimed this idea and who promoted this idea.  You know that at night from the elections - so called elections - Maxim was arrested.  He was arrested and he is in the prison in Kresty for two months.  I know Maxim; he is great guy, very honest, very intelligent man and very quiet man.  He was arrested because he fought against Russian police.  Nobody who knows Maxim believes that.  It happened because Maxim is one of the leaders of the conference which the main task is unification.  That is why the power is very afraid, is very afraid of such kind of unification and I can say that when we come back to Moscow, my main goal will be to organize this conference and to invite everybody including Kasyanov, including of course Kasparov, Ryzhkov, SPS, Yabloko, Vladimir Kara-Murza, everybody, even Michael McFaul, if he wants.  Like our [speaks in Russian], wow. 

Anyway, I think that this the only way to change situation because in the situation when, for example, Kasyanov was fired, who protected him?  Just few guys said that this is illegal, this is against Russian constitution, this is against the rule.  No more.  Reznik is in the prison.  Of course a lot of organizations try to support him but separately.  Yevlinsky said one thing, Belykh and SPS another one, Kasyanov something which is important but absolutely split, absolutely disorganizing.  That is why I think that if we want to protect freedom - our own freedom now - I want to talk that we do not speak now about freedom for everybody.  We speak about absolutely concrete. 

Political opposition, now, is in a very big trouble.  I’m sure that Maxim is only the first - but not last.  That is why I believe that such kind of unification is absolute and necessary; nevertheless, what happens with commodities, nonetheless what happens with profits of the budget and with economic performance?

And the last point, the U.S. and I want to be frank with you, right.  I think that Bush administration - not administration - I can say, American policy was against Russian democracy.  For example, when Mr. Bush said that, “We want to build democracy in Iraq,” he said.  Putin immediately responds, “Guys, do you like such kind of democracy, like Bush suggested in Iraq?”  That is it, that is enough.  For Russian people that is enough. 

Well, that is why I’m afraid that -- and if you want to proclaim an idea of democracy you have to be very cautious and careful.  If you want to push everybody, we insisted you to build freedom and democracy.  Freedom and democracy is better than authoritarian style of government.  This is true but if you press so much and very aggressive, this is against your goal.  You have to be more careful and maybe to be in more, I can say, collaboration with Europeans.  If you look at public opinion in Russia, Russians like European Union, very much, even more than Ukraine.  And as far as the U.S. is concerned, yes, about half of the populations are okay about America but propaganda is completely against and if you are very aggressive, this is against your goal.

What is my view?  I think that there is no limitation for the power in our country.  They can do what they want.  They can do what they want because opposition is weak, left under Kremlin control and liberals are -- I already talked about.  That is why influence from the West, from the U.S., from G-7 countries is one of the very rare opportunities to change this.  But I think that you have to be more care how to do this.  Second, maybe programs for exchange of people.  You know, because of propaganda, Russians have no ideas what does mean democracy.  They believe that democracy means chaos and war in Iraq.  That is it - which is terrible.  That is why such kind of exchange programs will be very fruitful.  And Europeans - if you are in a very good connection with Europeans as far as Russian policy is concerned, it will be great.  Thank you.

Leon Aron:  Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Vladimir Kara-Murza:  Thank you, Leon.  When Yuri Andropov became head of the Soviet State back in 1992, many criminologists in the West began to look for some signs that this man may actually be a closet Liberal.  Some said he likes to drink cognac, others said he secretly listens to jazz, others still claimed he can speak English; never mind his actual record of having established the infamous Fifth Directorate of brutal crackdown on intelligentsia and the dissidents, of the use of punitive psychiatry and all those other things. 

Every time a new authoritarian ruler comes into the Kremlin, these amazing attempts to find some hidden traits of liberalism in him seem to repeat themselves in western capitals and in this town.  Though, I must say, Leon, not in the walls of this institution or the institution Dr. McFaul represents.  Of course, we all remember how when Mr. Putin came to power eight years ago, people said, “Look he is young, he speaks German, he had a law education, he lived in Germany.  Sure, this man must be a modernizer and a reformer.”  Of course we all know what his actual record has been in the past eight years. 

Appearances can be very deceptive, as we know.  After all it was a child of simple peasants from the Urals region, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, who went on to lead our country in what was the most democratic period in our entire history.  And so once again, now with the succession from Putin to Medvedev we will begin to hear the familiar song:  He is young, he studied law, he worked for Sobchack, he knows how to use the Internet, and finally, he likes Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, and what have you, so surely he is a Liberal.

Male Voice:  [Inaudible] -- was in the Kremlin.

Vladimir Kara-Murza:  Yes.  He was even in the Kremlin to greet him. 

So how many times can people keep falling into one same trap?  Of course, when people said that Putin must have been influenced by his experience in Germany, they were not entirely wrong except, of course, that it was the wrong kind of Germany because I would suggest that the political system established by the end of eight years of Putinism is very similar, actually, to what existed in the German Democratic Republic. 

It was, of course, as we remember in East Germany, unlike in the Soviet Union, officially there was no one party state.  As well as the ruling Socialist Unity Party, there are other registered political parties including the Christian Democrat Union, the Liberal Democratic Party and many others.  Of course we know that this was just a façade and they were just departments of the regime.  But officially, it was not the case and even more Honecker’s socialists only had about one-third of seats in the East German parliament officially, so they were rather more modest than Mr. Putin who grabbed himself two-thirds of seats in the last so called parliamentary elections that Boris Nemtsov talked about.

So all these parties were obviously just a cover and this is exactly what we have today as well.  All four parties represented in the current Duma are either Kremlin creations or loyal and subservient to it.  All four candidates that took part in the so-called presidential elections last Sunday were either put forward by the Kremlin or were loyal and subservient to it.  The real, the genuine opponents of the regime such as Vladimir Bukovsky and Mikhail Kasyanov were removed from the ballot by the Central Electoral Commission. 

And I would like to say a few words about the Bukovsky campaign since I had the privilege to be the national chairman of it from May until December last year because I think it shows quite a lot about the current situation and in a way shows one of the last touches in the construction of the Putinist political system. 

I think Benito Mussolini once said when he described his strategy for consolidating his power in the 1920s; he called it “plucking the chicken feather by feather to lessen its squawking.”  And I believe this is an exact quote.  And I think this is a very good way to describe Putin’s strategy over the past eight years because what he has done.  There was no military coup in one night.  It was all done very gradually, very carefully, one by one but with the end goal -- very, very clear indeed from the start. 

He began with just symbolic things to test the ground - as you remember with the Stalinist national anthem, with the restoration of Andropov’s memorial plaque on Lubyanka Square.  He then went after independent television stations, all of which were closed or seized by the government between 2001 and 2003: NTV, TV6, TVS.  He then attacked independent business interests which dared to behave independently of the party line or remember the Yukos case and then came the purge of the democratic opposition from the Russian parliament in the elections of 2003. 

Then came the federalism and regional self-government and the abolition of the elected regional governors in favor of appointed governors and then, of course, the final changes to the election law, abolition of direct districts’ elections for the Duma, abolition of the “against all” option, abolition of the minimum turnout requirement, many, many other things.  And the last thing to go during this current presidential succession process - I do not want to call it an election - was the appearance of electoral competition. 

And I want to stress this word “appearance” because, of course, the last genuinely competitive elections, if we are to accept the standards of the OSCE, the leading European institute for election monitoring, was in December 1999, the last couple of weeks of Yeltsin’s presidency, the parliamentary elections.  This was the last genuinely competitive elections.  All national votes since then were, to a greater or lesser extent, staged and managed by President Putin. 

I can sure tell a lot of interesting stories about the 2003 parliamentary elections in which I was a candidate for the Duma, as Leon mentioned.  I remember how the TV station for instance, would lose the sound accidentally during my debates - they said technical issues, of course; how our campaign posters would go within minutes of being placed; or how the lights would be switched off on the billboards, et cetera, et cetera.  Of course, on Election Day itself, you would get a large group of people bussed around several polling places, voting several times for the correct candidate. 

And even more amazing stories can be said about the 2007 parliamentary elections, so called elections, and Boris talked about it and I’m sure he can talk more in the answer and question session.  To mention just one thing, the Ministry of the Interior Special Forces arrest and seize 25 million copies of SPS campaign literature, almost all of it - brochures, leaflets, posters, everything - seized at the printing presses.  Candidates were harassed, they were detained including Boris Nemtsov and Nikita Belykh who were detained in St. Petersburg last November despite them being parliamentary candidates, which is evidently against the law. 

And needless to say, there was no access to national television.  I would just like to quote from -- this is a study by the Russian Union of Journalists from last year’s Duma campaign – seven-week study.  And according to this study, Channel One, the main television station, devoted 87 percent of its news coverage to President Putin, his government, his party and his administration and all of that was, of course, extremely positive.  The two democratic opposition parties, SPS and Yabloko, together, between them had 1.6 percent of news coverage and most of that was extremely negative.  And of course election day itself, as we know, there were incidents of ballot stuffing, forced voting when people who work at state enterprises would be forced to vote and even photograph their ballot paper on their cell phone and then send it to their boss - just open ballot stuffing and many, many other things. 

But in 2003 and 2007, the opposition was at least formally on the ballots, so there was an appearance of some kind of electoral competition for the outside world.  This last pretense of democracy was ended during this current process of presidential succession.  Last spring, spring 2007, a group of prominent civil society activists, members of intelligentsia, writers, journalists as well as leading representatives of both SPS and Yabloko Party nominated Vladimir Bukovsky for the presidency of the Russian Federation.

This was in my view a unique civic experiment as much a moral gestures, as political one because, of course, against the regime, which is led and inspired by ex-KGB operatives.  We decided to put forward somebody who has fought the KGB all of his life, fought it successfully and for many Russians it is our own Vaclav Havel, our own Lech Walesa who is universally respected by all people who believe in democracy in Russia. 

Bukovsky is one of the prominent, most active dissidents during the Soviet times.  He began his fight against the regime in his early youth.  He was behind the Mayakovsky Square readings in the late 50s, early 60s, which essentially launched the dissident movement; he was behind the main two anti-government, anti-regime demonstrations on Pushkin Square in ’65 and ’67.  He revealed the crimes of the Soviet Punitive Psychiatry for the whole world to see and he spent nearly 12 years of his life behind the bars of the gulag, in a camp’s Special Psychiatric Unit of psikhushkas.  Finally, in ’76 he was forcibly exiled to Switzerland, taken from his prison cell in and handcuffs, thrown onto a plane and thrown out in Zurich.  And only in 1992, Bukovsky’s Russian citizenship was restored by decree from President Boris Yeltsin.

 Our campaign immediately took off the ground without much money, without professional staff, and needless to say, without national television coverage on state television.  We had local campaign groups for Bukovsky, established in 28 Russian regions - that is more than a third - within weeks.  The national campaign committee was joined, as I already said, by prominent representatives from civil society - opposition parties.  A poll conducted by Eho Moskvy, one of the most popular radio stations in Moscow - last May - showed that 76 percent of its listeners approved of Bukovsky’s decision to run for presidency. 

Finally, in one of the major development, Yabloko Party officially endorsed Vladimir Bukovsky as its presidential candidate in the 2008 elections.  This is the first time in this party’s entire history that they supported somebody other than Grigory Yavlinsky, so I think this is a major development indeed. 

 Of course, the response from the authorities was equally enthusiastic.  Within days of launching the campaign, four members of the campaign committee had criminal proceedings initiated against them on various different pretexts -- Piontkovsky, Samodurov, Pribylovsky and Shenderovich - within days.

 In St. Petersburg, local campaign activists were arrested, had all their literature confiscated, spent the night at the police station, a major bookstore and the national library in Petersburg abruptly cancelled the book signing ceremonies prearranged before.  They called in tears, literally and said, “You understand, don’t you - what is happening today,” -- they just said it openly. 

And of course, Bukovsky himself when he was in St. Petersburg on a campaign visit last November, he was stopped on the street as he was walking down the street.  Two police cars approached him; officers got out and said “You understand you have to go with us now.”  He said “What is the charge?”  I think it was a captain; he just looked around and said, “Well, let’s see.  Let’s say you crossed the street on a yellow light, we are going to put that down.”  Actually they like this one in St. Petersburg - because Boris Nemtsov was also arrested for crossing the street in red light also in November, so this is kind of popular thing now, you cross the street in red light.  They kept him for two hours but then his aides -- this is the age of cell phones, thank God, so his aides managed to get it out to the major news agencies, headlines went within minutes and after two hours, the order for detention was cancelled and he was let go. 

But of course, for somebody like Bukovsky, with all his life experiences; this is all child’s play.  Obviously, none of these could stop the campaign - the movement - and so they had to stop it by some other means. 

And here I need to say a few words about the current Russian Election Law as it stands after eight years of Putin’s rule - all the changes and amendments made to it. 

The current Election Law as it stands makes it, basically, impossible for any opposition candidate, not just to be registered but also even to be nominated.  First, you have to get 500 people in one place, in one room at one time for the nominating meeting.  And you have to notify the Central Electoral Commission, a minimum of five days in advance of the day of this meeting; otherwise, it is invalid, which you know in any normal situation would be fair enough, in any ordinary democracy. 

In our condition, of course, five days is more than enough for the authorities to apply pressure on the owners or the management of the convention hall to cancel the meeting.  And this is exactly how they sabotaged the nomination of Garry Kasparov for the presidency in December.  They cancelled one hall; he applied for next one, they cancelled that one.  And, of course, you need to have five days every time, so after a while, the nominating period just ends.  That was what they did.

 This is exactly what happened to us.  Two days before the nominating meeting in December and we were actually at the time in a car with Boris Nemstov and Bukovsky going down to see Mr. Kasyanov as it happens.  We got a call that three people, three men came to the office of the director of the convention hall which we have rented.  It is the convention hall Kralovsky [phonetic] in Northern Moscow in Ostankina.  They showed this lady - the director - they showed her identification papers which identify them as officers of the FSB, the Federal Security Service.  These people do not hide anymore; they just show it openly.  And they suggested that is better for her and the convention hall for this meeting, not to go ahead. 

So the rent agreement was abruptly cancelled but, of course, we had foreseen this because Kasparov’s experience happened before.  And when we applied to the Electoral Commission, we gave two different addresses.  The second address was the Andrei Sakharov Museum in Moscow - the Andrei Sakharov Foundation - and we knew that they would not budge; they would not fall under any pressure if their leadership was actually on a national campaign committee. 

The problem was that if you have been into the museum, you know it is absolutely tiny.  It can hold maximum of 120, maybe 150 people, nowhere near the 500 required for the nomination, so which meant that most people, a vast majority, would need to stay outside in the Moscow December cold.  And not just stay, come and go, the process takes hours because of another requirement put in the election law which had not existed under Yeltsin’s that it is not just the nominating convention; every single signature has to be fully and individually notarized.  So it takes hours to go to this process.

 And of course, it should not be forgotten that in order to participate in such a meeting and nominate the presidential candidate, you have to provide the authorities with your full name, your home address, your home telephone number, your passport number, your place of work, your full personal information.  You know in today’s conditions this in itself is an act of civic terrorism. 

I have to admit on the eve of the meeting, we thought in the campaign that we actually probably would not be able to complete the nominating process and to get the 500.  In the end we had not 500 but nearly 900 people who came and stayed for seven hours outside in the cold from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. to register their signature and to nominate Vladimir Bukovsky for the presidency of the Russian Federation.

 I do not believe anybody who may have been cynical about Russian opposition, Russian civil society, the future of Russian democracy could have remained the cynic if they have witnessed - as I have - the shown courage these hundreds and hundreds of people who came despite all the odds to say, “I’m a citizen, not a slave.  This is my country too.”

 So unfortunately for the government, we had complied with every single one of their own election law requirements.  So they have to obviously come up with something else and of course, they did.  After a few days’ consideration, the Central Election Commission by 10 votes to one voted to remove Vladimir Bukovsky from the presidential ballot on three grounds.  First ground was that he had not submitted official proof, official documentation that he is actually a writer, which he stated as his occupation on the application.  Now, evidently the eight books which he published around the world - including, of course, in Russia and just republished last fall - evidently that was not good enough proof for the Central Electoral Commission. 

Second claim - they produced a letter written by no less than the First Deputy Foreign Minister of Russian Federation under Andrei Denisov which stated that Mr. Bukovsky possibly - and that is an official document - possibly holds a residence permit in the United Kingdom and thus somehow for some reason is ineligible to run for an elected office in Russia.  Needless to say, no such provision exists in the Russian Constitution which gives two and only two grounds for electoral disfranchisement:  Mental illness and criminal conviction - that is all.

 And the third ground, the most bizarre ruling, which actually caused quite a few laughs among the legal experts.  They decided to interpret—there’s a 10-year residency requirement in the Constitution for all presidential candidates.  And up until now, it was always interpreted as 10 years during one’s lifetime hence, for instance, Alexander Lebed, who was registered in 1996 for the presidential election when he had lived one year before the election in Russia.  But of course, he obviously had more than 10 years during his life, which was okay.  But for Mr. Bukovsky, they decided to interpret the 10 years as 10 years immediately proceeding the day of the election by which ruling, the Central Election Commission effectively annulled Vladimir Putin’s elections as Russian president in 2000 because he had lived for nine years in Russia prior to that election day.  So there we go, by 10 votes to one the Commission terminated our campaign. 

This was the final confirmation and actually, I would like to just stress one remarkable fact associated with this, Slobodan Milosevic allowed opposition candidates on the ballot; Alexander Lukashenko allows opposition candidates on the ballot; Robert Mugabe allows opposition candidates on the ballot.  Obviously, they then rig the elections, but they allow opposition candidates on the ballot, real opposition candidates just, you know, as a pretense.  These regimes now have more legitimacy even in terms of public image than the Putin-Medvedev regime and I think it is a remarkable fact, actually. 

So this March 2nd election - so-called election - I think was the final confirmation for those who still may have needed of the constitutional, the electoral way of changing government in our country has been closed.  And in my view, actually, as for me, the biggest crime that the Putin regime committed against our country - the elimination of the normal, the constitutional way of changing the government; it does not exist.

 So it shouldn’t be surprising that following the dismantling of all institutions of electoral democracy, the silencing of all the critical television stations, opposition activity went to the only place it had left - to the streets of Russian cities and towns.

 From late 2006, opposition groups led by Mr. Kasyanov, Mr. Kasparov, others began organizing mass anti-regime rallies known as marshi nesoglasnikh, march of the dissenters, that happened in many towns and cities across Russia but most prominently in Moscow and St. Petersburg where there were marchers numbered thousands of people and, especially large ones were last April and last November in Moscow and St. Petersburg. 

These marchers, as I said, numbered thousands of people despite the fact that they are banned, in direct contradiction with the constitutional guarantee of freedom of assembly.  The participants are threatened; they are beaten; they are arrested; and some of them are even jailed, but people come out nevertheless and the protest movement is growing.  And obviously, this is a very warning sign of the regime, I will suggest.  Obviously, the strength of the opposition is nowhere near yet as, for instance, the color revolutions in the Ukraine and Serbia and other countries.  But the trend is clear, because five or six years ago, you would be lucky to get 50 or 100 people in the pro-democracy rally in Moscow; now, we have thousands of people despite all the pressure, despite all the crackdowns, despite the ban. 

And I will suggest that the strength of the opposition movement is something like, maybe, if you remember the “Ukraine without Kuchma Coalition” which started in September-October of 2000, four years before the Orange Revolution, when also, maybe two or maybe 3,000 come up and then we know what happen after four years. 

And also, somewhat similar to the Zajedno Coalition -Together Coalition - in Serbia led by Zoran Djindjic and others, back in 1996, also four years before the fall of the Milosevic regime. 

And another important point, which Boris Nemstov touched upon, is this process of consolidation, which is finally beginning to happen - maybe.  What we would have been trying and working for so many years - maybe - we are finally beginning to see it and this conference in St. Petersburg is very, very important.  We do not know yet if it will have to be rescheduled; maybe, it will have to be put back by a week or two because of the arrest of Maxim Reznik who was the chief technical organizer in St. Petersburg.  It is clear why he was arrested.  By the way, he has been arrested for two months as Boris said, in Kresty, but all the charges that have been leveled against him if he is sentenced, or I say if he is sentenced, in our conditions, if there is a phone call, he might get up to five years imprisonment - up to five years - just for being an opposition political activist. 

Hopefully, this will mobilize some people and hopefully, this year will be decisive, at least, in terms of the beginning maybe of the process of unification, consolidation of the Russian Democratic Opposition. 

And finally, wrapping up, I would just like to say that Marquis de Custine,   a famed 19th century traveler to Russia, once remarked that Russia politically was, as he described it, a nation of mutes.  But he also warned in the same book and I would like to quote it directly, “Nations are mute only for a time -- sooner or later, the day of discussion arises.”  We know, not just from distant history but from our own lifetime, that there have been indeed such days of discussion in Russia. 

Now we do not know exactly when, we do not know exactly how, but we do know that a new day of discussion, a new day of political change will come.  And I will suggest it will come much sooner than many analysts currently believe. 

Thank you.

 Leon Aron:  Thank you very much for that.  Now we go to Oleg Buklemishev.

Oleg Buklemishev:  Thank you.  Vladimir reminded me when speaking about Andropov, a good story, I went flying to America.  I was reading a new book about the history of speechwriting in Russia.  I read there a story, which told me about Andropov much more than I knew previously when Andropov was already general secretary, number one in Soviet nomenclature.  He once asked one of his speech writers, to prepare him an informational document on the topic whether Jesus Christ truly exists.  I do not know which documents will be the new successor asking from his speechwriters.  But I believe it is not very far away from such a level. 

I was thinking long on how to make this presentation here but it was hard for me because my colleagues, Boris and Vladimir and Vladimir Ryzhkov also, they know the story that is very good but suddenly the assistance came from very unexpected quarters next day after the so-called presidential election.  And together, Mr. Kasyanov had a very interesting conversation - was one of the senior Western diplomats in Moscow at lunch next day after the so-called presidential election.  And I decided to build this presentation like to call, to name this presentation “A Conversation with Senior Western Diplomat in Moscow.” 

I would not disclose his personal or even national identity but, believe me, that what he was saying, what he was actually pointing out to us is very typical and these views are widely shared and not only by senior Western diplomats in Moscow.

First, senior Western diplomat in Moscow says, “At least, what was very encouraging that Putin has not changed the Constitution.”  A lot of people in the West applaud Putin, only because he did not change the Constitution and did not run for the third term.  I believe this is entirely wrong because what we have now, in the sense, is much worse than Putin could have done if he changed the Constitution.  At least the story would have been absolutely clear in substance so that there is a president, the president stays and he will be the leader of the country at least for sometime to come. 

What we have now -- I believe the story is much worse than Boris accurately pointed out that nobody knows, even the staunchest Kremlin propaganda man, even they do not know how this dual-headed system would work.  And there is a point where I disagree with Boris; it does not mean where the office of this or that particular official is situated.  It does not mean - in Russia situation - it does not mean whether this person controls army or not. 

In our situation, what is increasingly important nowadays in Russia is who controls power structures?  Who controls FSB?  Who controls police?  Who controls other agencies - there are several agencies, which we call “power structures, siloviki.”  And this is the main tool; this is the main leverage which is being used by Putin to control the country.  All the other businesses, television, in fact, are secondary to this general control of the power structure and the mechanism of the power structure, which is very well known to this person how to do that.  What people now see is that the mechanisms of power are very, very familiar to them. 

The problem is that in another part of Russian law, after the election will be applied not in an institutional way but to the person-wise.  That is what we have after this so-called election on the second of March.  And what is much worse really - and my colleagues already pointed it out - that illegitimacies now one of the names of this game. 

After the so-called Duma elections in December and the examples abound, my colleagues already described these examples, it is clear that we have illegitimate Duma.  What is interesting there is information that the successor, the anointed successor that he wanted to be appoint not by an illegitimate faction of the illegitimate Duma.  He wanted to be supported by the collection of signatures like Putin did in 2000, like Putin did in 2003; he was not allowed to do that.  It was deliberately done so that he had to be appointed as a candidate by the illegitimate faction of the illegitimate Duma. 

Coming back to the story of the Duma election, what was most striking for me; it was probably the first case in human history when the president in the office was running for ordinary parliament seat.  It cannot be even mentioned in any other political system but Russia, the president in the office - Putin - was running, in fact, as a leader of one of the party lists, which is something astonishing in that what we had in December last year was just trauma for many people who previously believed in Putin, even who previously supported him. 

Now, we have the successor running; he will be running the country two months from now and the interesting thing that he could not even campaign himself.  The phrase, “Freedom is better that non-freedom” is probably the only one which could be remembered out of his speeches and presentations during the campaign.

In fact, he was sold and is still being sold to the public not as a person but like an embodiment of stability.  First and second, probably, like Putin enlarged, Putin extended with some positive extras but nobody knows who the successor, who is Mr. Medvedev.  It is interesting that the famous question, “Who is Mr. Putin,” in fact, was asked in year 2000 that that was he was asked to Mr. Pesyanov [phonetic] and the person who started asking this question was Mr. Chubais.  He did.

Second point by senior Western diplomat - Putin is enormously popular and the results of the election is due to this fact and it could not have been different and it could not have been in any other way.  I also deem it is wrong.  If you look further into the issue, Putin’s popularity, whether it was 60 percent, it was 80 percent, year 2000 or 2008, you look into figures according to polls we have, people usually ask now the question, “Why do you love Putin?”  Basically, there are three, more or less, equal groups of people answering this question.  First answer is that Putin is good; he is doing good things.  Second answer, we hope that Putin will do good things.  And third answer - there is nobody else is around. 

So there are three more or less equal group whether Putin’s popularity 60 percent or 80 percent.  What does it mean?  It means that propaganda is doing its job pretty well.  At 2/3 of people love Putin not because of his effort - let me borrow here pioneering formula by such an authority as Thomas Graham, “A Modernizing Czar,” not because the modernizing czar presented some positive results - at least 2/3 of people love Putin because of daily brainwash. 

You simply cannot believe that there is no single political show in Russia; there is not a single live political program in Russia.  You cannot hear - the only outcast we have is just RTV and Vladimir is their representative here - you cannot see on TV any alternative view and what is going on in the country.  It is difficult to imagine here, on this country, but that is the case. 

This kind of popularity is probably easy to build but very difficult to sustain; moreover, it is even more difficult to pass it on.  And the political technology of the last two elections was very simple; people were simply asked, “Are you in favor of Putin?  Are you for Putin?  Or are you against Putin?”  And the default option for this answer is quite clear especially if you take into account that it is not only economically dangerous now to improperly answer this question but also increasingly physically dangerous for people. 

It is quite funny; Boris already referred to this fact.  Our collection of signatures because Kasyanov was the only alternative candidate who came to the stage of collecting signatures - I will say a few words after about that in detail - but when our collectors of signatures in the beginning of January, were asking people in the regions to give the signatures.  First, first people were really surprised that there was an election in the country in March.  They were simply answering, “We just voted for Putin, why do we need another presidential election?”  And when they were told, they were described the situation that it was Duma election, now you have presidential election, they were absolutely astonished at all that Putin was not running.  This story shows us that Putin’s popularity is something of a mystery and this mystery is not properly treated neither in Russia, nor here.

Next point by a senior Western diplomat, I wonder why they need such a dirty game around the elections; they would have won it in any event.  Your candidate support - here I meant Kasyanov - was to low to seriously pretend to win anyway.  I believe this is entirely wrong.  From the very beginning, the recent election was constructed in the way that hard manipulation and arrogant falsification was simply part of - embedded in the process of election.  It is clear to understand each new election sets a new bench mark and in order to interpret each new one, you have to somehow compare it to the previous ones.  Of course, there are some laws which people should follow.  Some of these laws are clearly evident.  The support of the authorities can be only growing. 

Putin’s successor or Putin’s party cannot get more votes than Putin himself.  The turnout should also be growing and according to this arithmetic there is a very narrow frame where you can assign each new election results.  And this is already very precise science, cannot be delegated even to the Central Election Commission and not to mention, Russian people.  It should not come as a surprise that polling industry is such and in Russia is already under huge and dominating Kremlin controls. 

And speaking about ratings, all the candidates had quite different figures from different regions and I would say that they were strikingly different from what we saw in the papers and what was reported by different polling agencies.  During the collection of signatures, which would build not as technical procedure but as a political procedure, people started to understand that there is an alternative.  It is very important that in the course of election, you an alternative; that was Vladimir was speaking about.  At the end of the day, Russian citizens had no alternative but if they have alternative, the results would have been very, very different and we believe it was different. 

And I would like to say a few words about what is collection of signatures.  In order to be registered as an independent candidate, you have to collect two million signatures supporting your candidacy from the Russian citizens and you cannot, of course, collect these signatures only in one region of the country.  You have to go at least to 40 regions because 50,000 signatures is the maximum.  You cannot afford from any subject of the Russian Federation so, again, Moscow 50,000; Chukotka, 50,000; Mordovia, 50,000; Ingushetia, 50,000 - not more than 50,000 signatures.  If you could imagine, the list contains not only signature, it contains a lot of data about each person.  It contains the name of the person, his address, the rest of his registration, then it contains a passport data of this guy and at last, the birth date or at least, the birth year of the person. 

In the sense it is much stronger than vote in itself because voting, I still believe in Russia, is anonymous.  Here a person who undersigned in favor of this candidacy presented all his credentials; presented all his personal data in order to support that.

It was much a stronger move.  It means that two million people were already in favor of -– two million, it is about two percent of Russian voters; it is quite an amount.  And what happened at the end of the day, we presented this two million signatures to the Central Election Commission but Central Election Commission considered that 80,000 of these signatures were improperly -– the list of these signatures. 

And, mainly, the -– I have not said that after you collect all the signatures the list should be undersigned by the collector himself and the collector’s signature should be also confirmed by the notary.  And then the candidate himself or the trusted person of the candidate should undersign the list, which was signed already five, six, seventh time.  So it should be seven signatures over each list of the signatures.

And there are also clear rules on how to make this list, how to prepare this list.  It is a hard form; you can only fill according to the procedures Central Election Commission has prescribed to us.  And the mistakes -- while these 80,000 signatures were not -– I will call the biggest lines in there and their protocol from Central Election Commission.  A missed name of the region, a wrong format of the date, no signature of collecting  proper place, improper abbreviations, and so on and so forth.  So these were the mistakes which were treated by the Central Election Commission in the way that the candidate collected two million signatures could not be registered as a candidate for the Presidential -–

Male Voice:  Excuse me, Oleg.  I think it would be interesting for people to know the time limitations on collecting those [cross-talking]

Oleg Buklemishev:  Yes.  The time limitation -- it was also interesting because when they announced presidential elections at the end of November, you first have to have this meeting to -- of nomination.  Then after you are nominated, we had even more interesting procedure when we nominate a candidate.  We had bought a concert in Moscow; “Mama Mia” musical was running and we staged it like “Mama Mia” musical.  After that people were simply signing the same nomination of Kasyanov.  We have to somehow be creative in order to get around the existing difficulties. 

After that you present your credentials to the Central Election Commission and Central Election Commission would register you.  You have to open your account in only one unit of one Russian bank, Sberbank.  And after you open this account, after you put money there, each procedure takes at least one day.  After you put money there you can print this list to collect signatures and after that, you can collect signatures. 

And this year we could start the collection of signatures only on 18th of December, if I'm not mistaken.  You understand there is a western Christmas then there is a New Year holiday, then there is Russian Christmas.  And by 25th of January, all the signatures should be already in the Central Election Commission.  So it is an astonishing task to collect two million signatures in less than two weeks of working days, but we managed to do that.

And, in fact, I believe that the fact that Kasyanov was not registered says us only about one thing that people in Kremlin are already afraid of everything.  Even if they were sure in the result of the presidential election itself, they could not even mention that a person like that, a responsible critic of the regime, could appear on the TV channels.  This is already something which cannot be imagined nowadays in Russia.

Next, senior western diplomats say, “Russia badly needs modernization.  New authorities should provide for it.”  One hundred percent agree.  But what is the source of modernization for us?  At least since 2003, no single reform has been executed by the Russian authorities.  All the reforms launched earlier were either stopped or even reversed.  In other words, the modernizing czar was not modernizing its country at all.  What will be the political drive of change after the change of regime, I wonder?  Who and why will start to take vested interest?  And what is a reform?  A reform is attack on vested interest; in Russia it is especially the case.

I do not believe that the successor already fully subscribed under what Putin was doing during the last eight years.  And he said that he supports everything and he did not separate himself from anything, which has been done by Putin during this period of time.  I do not see this as strong modernizing force.

Illegitimate and non-professional Duma, I doubt.  Monopolies -- state-owned monopolies or private monopolies who are granted huge privileges during the last period of time, I doubt.  The private businesses who are now afraid of making any independent moves, I doubt.  FSB domesticated and servile Liberals in power, I doubt.  There is a good English expression for modernizing hopes under the new president; in your language it is called wishful thinking.

Senior western diplomat say, “Succession is good for business.  Western business is applauding stability.”  That is also absolutely correct.  As opposed to us mere mortals, businesses always have something to lose.  Marx once observed that provided the rate of return is no more proper rate of return, business will swallow everything.  Even if they already lost a lot, they continue to struggle because they still have something to lose. 

For instance, I have never heard such a complimentary presentation on Gazprom like I heard even from Gazprom management itself, like I heard in January, in Brussels from BP officials.  BP officials were painting Gazprom as rosy and the best standard company [indiscernible].  It is good that western investors, well Schroeder is a separate story.  It is good that Western people export -– investors’ export to Russia.  Technologies -- it is good that they export to Russia best business practices.  It is very bad that they export to Russia lie and cynicism.

Senior Western Diplomat says, “It is too early to judge and you have to give them the benefit of the doubt.  Things will change.  The new president is liberal.  He is liberal by his personal credential.”  As an economist by training, I cannot help thinking of things in terms of economic models.  The model I have in mind this time is a so-called principal-agent model, usually used by economists when describing the corporate theory, the relationship between a manager and the shareholder.  The shareholder, the highest -- the manager in order to run the company and preserve his interest.  But, of course, managers, you know better than us probably, always has his own agenda, always has his own interest.  And there is always conflict between shareholder and the manager.

When applied to Russia this theory brings us to a very interesting conclusion.  Our manager, our hired manager destroyed the mechanism of changing himself.  That is what Vladimir already said; we already destroyed the election as an institute in our country.  That is a problem.  And now a manager will be running the company; the company will go bust but nobody can change this poor and improper manager.  I will remind you, it happened just after the most astonishing mistake, the greatest political failure ever Russian authorities could accomplish.  It was after Beslan national tragedy in September 2004.  Just a month after that Putin declared that election as an institute is destroyed in Russia that no citizen -–

Male Voice:  [Inaudible]

Oleg Buklemishev:  Not only governor selection.  New Duma package was launched after that.  New political parties’ package was also launched after that.  It was all part of the same package that no citizen can enter politics without appropriate license.  And the licensing, you know where it is.  It is not presidential election when you cannot register an independent candidate.  It is not the federal system when you cannot vote; you cannot elect your own governor.  It is not a multi-party system when you cannot register a party and, hence, be elected to the federal board regional legislative body.  Vladimir is fully aware of it and we know it, too. 

You can register, sustain political party in Russia only one of two ways.  First way is Kremlin; second way is human rights court in Strasburg.  And no other way to build an independent party in Russia.

A policeman comes to a person at home, person sitting at home, and the policeman asks, “Is it true that you are a member of opposition political party?”  And again, that default option for answer is clear.  What person would answer, if policeman comes to his home and asks this simple question, which sounds the same as I previously said: “Are you for Putin or are you against Putin?”  And default option is -- for this question is clear.  That is why we cannot form a new political party nowadays in Russia, and that is the case. 

And even if the Union of Right Forces somehow escapes its electric chair, it will be banned the next day.  I believe that the license which Union of Right Forces or Yabloko now have -- these licenses are worth nothing.  These licenses will be revoked to the next day after this party start to seriously be involved in the opposition activities.

And the last point by a senior western diplomat was most painful for me and my colleagues and this point is, “You Liberals, you are to blame.  You cannot even unite between yourselves.  You cannot agree between yourselves how to live further [sounds like] in your country.” Unfortunately that is true, but only partly true.  The Russian Liberals have flaw for sure, but the main flaw for Russian Liberals is not that they cannot be united.  The main flaw is that they are to blame for the destruction of the Institute of Elections themselves.  Starting in ’96, Russian Liberals - not the Communists - Russian Liberals are to blame for the destruction for increasingly managed elections. 

Russian Liberals were leading this procedure and Russian Liberals, unfortunately, were supported from many experts and still are supported -- many experts and many people here.  We cannot call a democrat a person who does not believe that free and fair elections in Russia can ever produce any beneficial result.  This is the line.  Well, you can draw the line, whether person is a Liberal or democrat, or whether he is not.

Coming back to the issue -- what to do now?  It is the most painful question to all of us.  You cannot be involved into party politics.  You have no access to media.  As Vladimir described, rental halls cancelled their registration even if you are paid for this whole; it does not matter.  Next day you are simply sent out because there is water or electricity switched off or whatever.  You cannot even go into the streets because it is increasingly dangerous and people know about that.  No march, no significant manifestation was confirmed by the authorities of the major cities.  And even if these manifestations are allowed, they are complemented compliments of the magistrate, which would happened to Maxim Reznik recently.

So there are very few things we can do now.  Nevertheless, we have to fight.  We have to fight, and what we believe can be done in principle during this period of time.  We have to find an appropriate ground for all the Democrats to join one political slogan and we will have an idea of what it could be.  A slogan could be a new early election of the Duma without political parties.  But only on the basis of single-mandate constituencies, which is the only way how to restore somehow legitimacy in the country which is now run by only illegitimate bodies.  We have illegitimate Duma.  We have illegitimate president.  We have illegitimate governors.  Everything is illegitimate.  That is, unfortunately, the case. 

And the starting point to restore legitimacy could be early election of the Duma without party list.  This slogan in our opinion can be joined by all the Democratic forces in our country, and this is what we could offer as a common ground for future action and future developments.

What is left for us?  Education, enlightenment, non-election grassroots companion, different joint actions, whether street actions or campaigning and Internet, which is still free in Russia.  And probably building the moral superiority of people who are fighting with this regime, creation of appropriate moral atmosphere around the people who have chosen to support, especially, intellectuals who have really chosen to support this political regime, which is now built in Russia.  The whole style of this authority, unfortunately, is sureality,  lie and fear.

I will finish with a quote from famous Russian writer and dissident Andrei Sinyavsky.  He once said the following:  “I have no differences with Soviet power, but Stalinistic ones.”  Frankly, previously, I did not understand what he had meant by that.  Now I do.  Thank you.

Leon Aron:  Thank you very much.  As you probably noticed we have our final participant.  First of all, my personal great thanks to Vladimir Ryzhkov who probably has not slept for 48 hours, whose luggage is still not here but who made it here.  And we are very grateful.  Let me add a couple of organizational points before that.  You all have been extremely patient.  Please, there is going to be an address by Vladimir Ryzhkov who was supposed to open this conference, but now he is the one to conclude it before Mike McFaul comments.  After Vladimir speaks, we will have question-and-answer, and then Mike McFaul will take over.

Since I have not introduced Vladimir Ryzhkov prior to this because he was not here, let me just say briefly that, again, as with other participants you have his biography in your folders.  He was a member of the Duma from its inception until 2007.  And I would like to add that he still would have been a member of the Duma had it not been for:  (a) The elimination of the single mandate that is independent district candidates and (b) the fact that his party, the Republican party of Russia, has never had the chance to be registered; in fact, was not. 

However, I was present at its kind of founding or re-founding, I should say; it is one of the oldest Democratic parties in Russia.  But it was sort of re-founded by Vladimir Ryzhkov in 2005 and, in fact, in your folders you have a piece that I wrote about it; it is called Liberty Above All:  Vladimir Ryzhkov and the Republican Party of Russia.  A lot of it is about this incredible atmosphere that I encountered during the re-founding meeting of the Republican Party of Russia.  I felt that I was back in 1989 or 1990.  There was so much enthusiasm.  There was so much belief that liberty is the key and democracy is the key, and human dignity is the key to Russia’s progress and prosperity.

Vladimir Ryzhkov represented the Altai Krai.  He was deputy speaker of the Duma for two years between ‘97 and ’99, and the –- his saga sort of presents the whole problem from a slightly different angle and that is he was actually going to register a party rather than a candidate, and perhaps he could go into that.

I often quote, with attribution, something that I heard at that founding congress in 2005.  I believe it was written as a platform for the party by Vladimir where he said that, “President Putin’s popularity is like a rusty nail on which, like an old worn-out coat, our entire political, social and economic system is hanging, but just barely.”  And I think that is a very good image for the inherent -- not the apparent but the inherent instability of the current political regime.  And I will let Vladimir Ryzhkov continue.  Vladimir, we are very grateful that you made it.

Vladimir Ryzhkov:  Thank you very much, Leon, for this invitation.  Thank you, everybody, for coming here.  Excuse me for my casual, and I can propose commercial for Delta Airlines.  commercial flight Delta.  My luggage is still in New York.  My yesterday flight was delayed for four hours and in the end Delta decided to cancel it.  So it is a nice experience of democracy, yes.  But coming back to Russia, I will make some comments on discussion, which I missed, unfortunately.  So in some points I will repeat my colleagues and friends.  In some points, maybe, I will be controversial.  But in any case, I want to be honest.

My first comment is that there are some widespread delusions about contemporary Russia, about elections here and there, and about situation with Liberal opposition in Russia.  First mistake to think that in Russia we will have new administration in May.  It is a big mistake because in Russia we will have, I agree with Oleg, the same administration.  It is a big difference with United States.  You will have in January a new administration; we re-elected old administration.  I do not see any mark of changes of some liberalization in Russia. 

For instance, Putin will be Prime Minister and when was his famous press conference, he was asked by someone:  “How long will you be Prime Minister?”  And his answer was, “Until Medvedev will be president.”  So a future Prime Minister who will be appointed by president knows today what term he will work as a prime minister.  It is a picture of their relations.

Secondly, Medvedev many times said that he will be comfortable with Putin and it is a strong alliance, and I think it is true.  And, thirdly, a couple of days ago Putin characterized Medvedev as a strong Russian Nationalist, not least than Putin himself.  So I do not -– and about British council, Medvedev made remarks even more brutal than Putin.  So I can give you many, many examples that this Western myth about coming Gorbachev perestroika-like liberalization -- for today I do not have any serious arguments for that.

Moreover, I see some features that regime could be more authoritarian even than today.  For instance, I do not know my colleagues said about that or not, but our friend Maksim Reznik, head of Yabloko in St. Petersburg, I met him two days before he was arrested.  It was a peaceful demonstration and this deal is totally falsified by police.  And I see that more and more restrictions, even more than in previous months on my public actions, street demonstrations, and so on.

Moreover, the so-called presidential elections -- of course it was not elections as my colleagues explained to you, but falsifications on these so-called elections were even more and bigger than in December.  I agree with the experts like the Dmitri Oreshkin who was saying that in December, falsification was about 10 percent, 12 percent.  In March, it was about 15, 20 percent on falsification to increase participation of voters and percentage of Medvedev.  So 15, 20 percent, it is a huge falsification.

Second delusion -- second mistake is that in the relations between Medvedev’s Russia and the West, we must wait; some spacing, some warming, some normalization.  Again, I do not see any reason for that because agenda for Russia-West relations for the coming four years is very tough, is very difficult - NATO enlargement; American anti-missile system in Europe; Kosovo is not over.  And, of course, fight for energy, fight for different pipelines in different regions - Caspian, Central Asia, and so on.  So I think that relations between Russia and the West with new Russian leadership, which is in reality old Russian leadership will be the same or even more cool than for these days.

Finally, a couple of words about Liberal position.  There is myth that we need just unification of everybody - Yavlinsky, Ryzhkov, Nemtsov, Illarionov, Kasparov, Kasyanov - and it will be victory.  It is a myth because problem of Russian Liberal opposition -- because this recipe is too simple, to be truth.  Because many prominent figures of Russian oppositions, unfortunately, lost confidence of people and do not have enough reputation for collecting support of people. 

You can take last Parliamentary elections when two oldest Liberal parties took less than three percent together.  It is a worst result after collapse of the Soviet Union.  So if you will collect political figures who lost confidence of people, you will have political Enron Corporation, but not a story of success.  And it is a problem.

And second part of problem is that for new figures there are no any democratic infrastructure to communicate with public, to collect resources, and to register political parties.  We tried -- as Leon said, we tried renovate Republican Party of Russia three years ago because for me it was clear - and Boris knows that - for me it was clear that SPS and Yabloko did not have any chance for success in last December.  For me it was clear four years ago, and I published a big article in Vedomosti newspaper about that.  It was a rational analysis that only something new with new quality can be successful on parliamentary elections. 

But as a result, Republican Party was restricted.  And now as Oleg said, we are in European Court of Human Rights.  Kasyanov Party was not registered.  No one new party was registered for the last four years in Russia but 30 parties were closed according to new party law and only 14 parties exist for today.  And now we have some talks about that maybe amount of the political parties in one year be five, seven political parties.  So problem is not unification; problem is how to launch new quality, new organization, new people, new ideas without media resources and what I call democratic infrastructure.

Second problem with Liberal opposition is that we do not have common impression about the strategy.  Some Liberals in Russia prefer street actions, street demonstrations; I mean, first of all Garry Kasparov.  Second group prefer to collaborate with Kremlin.  Some people -- there are in Yabloko, for instance, Alexei Arbatov on Yabloko bureau proposed to support Dmitry Medvedev before presidential elections, and there are these people in SPS party, too.  So collaboration with regime is a totally different strategy.

And the third reason on Liberal opposition strategy to be independent but to try to create constructive program attractive for the people and find some channels to communicate with the society.  So it is very difficult to unite people with so different vision on strategy.  From revolution strategy to collaboration strategy, it is a real problem of Liberal opposition.

And I think that one of the main problems is that in Russian politics, first leaders always are last leaders of the parties.  Take Russian political system.  Who is founder of Communist Party?  Zyuganov.  From early ‘90s for these days, who is leader and founder of Yabloko?  Yavlinski.  He participated in many elections and always lost votes and the support of people.  The last result of Yabloko was 1.6 percent only.  Only party is SPS but face of SPS in reality was Boris Nemtsov last elections much more than Nikita Belykh.  And for public minds, Nemtsov, Chubais, and Gaidar are still -- and even Khakamada, who left party four years ago but is -- even Khakamada, you are the faces of the party; not new figures. 

And as a result, old leaders losing support of people.  New leaders do not have resources and possibilities to rise.  It is a dead end for Russian opposition - different strategies, no new faces, no understanding how to work.  Oleg was absolutely correct when he said that if you are in television you cannot register party; you cannot participate elections; you cannot collect money.  You cannot do nothing because infrastructure is destroyed totally.  And in these situations some people becoming dissidents like further dissidents.  Some people becoming revolutioners and arrested by powers.  And some people like mine, we are thinking what can we do in this absolutely difficult and controversial and an uncomfortable for us situation. 

In my political career - I started my career in Gorbachev years - I never been in so difficult environment as now, an environment becoming worse and worse day by day.  And I do not see any changes to liberalization.  So I think that there is no simple answer for us.  Unification it is not the answer, unfortunately.  Answer could be much more complicated and difficult.  And I hope that we have some time this year, maybe next year, to think about that.  And maybe this conference will help us to find the decision.  Thank you.

Leon Aaron:  Thank you very much.  We will now move to about 15 minutes, or maybe slightly even more, of questions and answers.  Thank you very much for being so patient.  I think we have a microphone; it is coming, okay.  Why not start -- introduce yourself.  The microphone is coming, I promise.

Male Voice:  [indiscernible] as far as Russian involvement, I did work for Vladimir Bukovski in Afghanistan a long time ago.  But anyway, I have two short questions.  One is Mr. Buklemishev talked about a single-mandate constituency as a key element, and I did not politically exactly understand what that means. 

And before I let that question go, the other question is people say you do not have media access to the people because of lack of resources, contacts, et cetera.  How much of a possibility does the Internet, especially Internet with speakers, represent -- for example, talk radio which led the concerted move in here, had broke through the liberal barriers and the media here.  And now that is going to be harder to stop because now you can Internet broadcast the voice.  So how soon is this possibility coming for Russia?  So those two questions:  the Internet opportunity and the single-mandated constituency.

Leon Aaron:  I'm sorry.  A question specifically to somebody or to anybody who would --?

Male Voice:  The first one was to Oleg because he mentioned that.  The second one is to whoever feels most qualified to answer that.

Leon Aaron:  Alright, please feel free, sir.

Oleg Buklemishev:  On single-mandate constituencies, we are now set in Russia that multi-party system is our future.  What is political party?  Political party is a mechanism how people can be in power.  In Russia that is not the case.  What Vladimir described, what I described -- you cannot launch political parties.  You cannot launch independent political parties.  People cannot get into power.  Any person cannot now get into power without entering this or that political party.  And that is wrong because people lived in the Soviet Union when only one party exists, basically.  There was one political party and people simply do not understand.  We still have no culture of political parties. 

And this culture has been developing for years after Gorbachev opened this gate.  But now it was not simply destroyed; it was spoiled.  Political parties now are synonymous with band of crooks, something like that.  In order to restore the link between people and power, we see only way how to do that is to, again, start with the lowest possible level of democracy, the grassroots democracy with single-mandate constituencies.  We do not see any development, any positive election result out of these artificial and managed structures, which are now called in Russia political parties.  That is --

Male Voice:  [Inaudible]

Oleg Buklemishev:  When a person knows who he votes for and the person can establish himself as a political leader will result [sounds like] during this imitation structures called [audio glitch]

[Cross-talking]

Oleg Buklemishev:  This is independent candidates.

Vladimir Kara-Murza:  It is the U.S. system, congressional system.  That is all.

Vladimir Ryzkhov:  For instance, me and Boris Nemtsov, we elected sometimes directly by people.  I am in Siberia; he is here from Nizhny Novgorod.  Now it is cancelled.  Now only political parties are registered by Kremlin.  It is a big change.  A huge country without direct representation - can you imagine?

Okay, about media, a very good question.  I will give you absolutely real correct figures.  Internet covers politically six percent of Russian audience.  It is not my figure; it is a figure of WCIOM polls of the last presidential elections.  Six percent of Russian voters took information about the candidates from the Internet; so six percent.  Big cities - Moscow, St. Petersburg; maybe a little bit Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod - that is all.  So Internet is not strong instrument.  Maybe in five, 10 years it could be.  But for today it is very small.

Independent newspapers -- very few.  Novaya Gazeta, Kommersant, Vedomosti, maybe a little bit Nezavisimaya; that is all.  Audience is less than 1.5 percent, mostly the same audience that for Internet.  And two independent radio stations Ekho Moskvy and  Freedom Radio, less than one percent audience in country.  So in some we can appear in media and networks covering five, seven percent of Russian public. 

And Kremlin manages strong propaganda and censorship for national-wide TV channels, which cover 100 percent of audience.  This mechanism let them strongly manipulate public opinion.  And I remember, always, Montesquieu’s words he wrote many, many years ago that you cannot speak about public opinion for the countries where there is no freedom of press.

Vladimir Kara-Murza:  Okay.   I’ll answer it. I have maybe a little slightly different perspective in terms of the Bukowski presidential campaign; there would not be one without the Internet.  You know, the local campaign groups that we had, literally, from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka, literally, in some three dozen regions -- it was only because of the Internet possibilities.  Because as Vladimir mentioned, Ekho Moskvy is only in Moscow and maybe some large cities like Perm, St. Petersburg -- right, yes.  Actually even by your figures, Internet is the biggest one of all the other ones -- newspapers and radio. 

So in terms of the Bukowski presidential campaign, Internet was the key.  That is absolutely no doubt about it.  And in terms of the broadcast possibilities, which you mentioned, the network which I represent, Gozinsky’s [phonetic] network RTVI, began Internet broadcasting some two years ago and now it has an estimated 500,000 audience, something like this, in Russia through the Internet.  Obviously, it is less than half of a percent so it is much less than even the figures that Vladimir Ryzhkov said. 

But the trends are there.  The trends are growing positively and even much more importantly than that, I think Leon would agree as somebody who has studied revolutions extensively and for a very long time that these political changes never come from the majority in most cases.  They come from a determined, small but socially active group of people; like in Ukraine, the Midan was 500,000 people in a country of -- was it 50 million?  Something like that.  So that is a promise for the future.  You do not have to get 51 percent of the population to go and do something.  It takes the right moment and the right number of group of people.

Leon Aaron:  Thank you.  Boris?

Boris Nemtsov:  Well, what is the main principle of censorship in Russia?  If you have a broadcasting  rating more than one percent, this is Kremlin.  Nevertheless, what does mean Internet, newspapers, TV; does not matter.  More than one percent.  That is why Ekho Moskvy is free, Vedomosti is free, mainly, and Kommersant is free and a lot of websites in Internet. 

But if you look at the biggest websites in Internet we have three:  I mean Mail.ru, Rambler, and Yandex.  These three biggest websites in Russia cover about 70 percent of general Russian market.  All of these three websites are under 100 percent of Kremlin control.  Nevertheless, who owns?  For example, Mail.ru is under control of South African company and some Russian business people, which are my friends, right?  But nevertheless, they told me that, “Boris, we want to make IPO and we want to raise money, blah-blah-blah.  That is why we have to listen what Mr. Sarkov will talk us about elections, et cetera.” 

That is why Internet, yes, this is promising market; that is true.  And maybe six percent is interested in politics.  But general amount of people who are involved in Internet now is about 20 million, which is a huge number.  But Kremlin guys understand what does it mean such kind of opportunity.  That is why they do not want to control everything.  They control all of the biggest websites -- just three.  That is enough.

Oleg Buklemishev:  I will add one comment on that.  There are even signs that technical progress is somehow hindered by Kremlin because the digital TV plans are postponed, postponed and postponed.  You understand why.  There are certain signs that broadband development is also hindered deliberately for this purpose.

Leon Aaron:  Okay.  I have Andrei Illarionov, then I have a gentleman over there -- right, you.  Then you, and then let me -- oh, over there.  All right, let’s go to Andrei and I will ask the next batch of three to raise their hands after Andrei.

Andrei:  Right.  First of all, thank you very much for these detailed description of what is going on right now in the country.  I think it is really important for people here in Washington and to listen and to understand the real situation of the country, and not only some kind of propaganda statements.  I have a couple of comments and one question.  The first comment would be concerning the statement in very detailed and very good presentation, Vladimir.  I mean where you have said that just the election of December ’99 where some kind of relatively free. 

Actually I believed in this also until our institute  of International Economic analysis has undertaken a very detailed study of [indiscernible] by all these districts and everything and everything; not on