bjbjLULU JUDY WOODRUFF: To Russia, where Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is running for
president in this coming Sunday's election, said his enemies were planning dirty tricks,
including ballot stuffing and even murder, in an attempt to mar the vote's outcome.
Our Margaret Warner is in Moscow, and she spoke with one of Russia's leading activists.
MARGARET WARNER: The world was shocked the first week of December, when thousands of
Russians took to the streets protesting what they charged was fraud in weekend parliamentary
elections, among the leaders, 35-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption blogger Alexei
Navalny.
He coined the now popular description of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party
as the party of crooks and thieves.
Navalny and others were arrested on the first day of those demonstrations, but, by Christmas
Eve, he was out and speaking to an even bigger anti-Putin rally.
All this has brought white-hot focus on this coming Sunday's presidential election, as
Putin seeks to reclaim the top office.
Though polls show Navalny is the most popular of the opposition figures, he's not on the
ballot.
But he stayed active, with a campaign branding Putin as a corrupt autocrat with his widely
read LiveJournal blog of government corruption exposes and with a new project to enlist volunteers
to monitor polling places this Sunday.
I spoke with Alexei Navalny at his office in Moscow.
Alexei Navalny, thank you for joining us.
You were at a rally in St. Petersburg on Saturday, and you said, these are not elections.
This is the reappointment of Putin.
What did you mean?
ALEXEI NAVALNY, opposition activist (through translator): Literally, it means what I said.
This is not an election.
This procedure is aimed at only one thing, the appointment of Prime Minister Putin once
again the president, seemingly for life.
MARGARET WARNER: For life?
It's just a six-year term.
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): Putin has been in power since '99, from the moment
when he was appointed acting prime minister by Boris Yeltsin.
Now, formally, he's not the president, but in fact he's a kind of a czar, an autocrat.
Unfortunately, he cannot imagine for himself another way of existence.
All these ghosts of Gadhafi are haunting him, and he knows that either he will be the president
or something unfortunate will happen to him.
MARGARET WARNER: Still, what does it say about Russian society, do you think, that you ve
had this incredible opposition movement arise in, at least publicly, just three months?
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): Six months ago, if you had asked me whether this would
happen in three months, I would have been very skeptical about it.
Nevertheless, it happened suddenly.
And it wasn't organized by the Russian opposition.
Putin did this.
People took to the streets in their protest to an open and public humiliation, which was
impossible to endure, to Vladimir Putin having falsified the election so obviously that it
was impossible to ignore.
MARGARET WARNER: Is there an irony here that in fact the 12 years of Putin and the economic
growth that has occurred has helped create the very class that now wants to get rid of
him?
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): Putin claims credit for economic growth and arguing
that, after the collapse of the '90s, now we have seen for 12 years the so-called Putin
stability.
However, simply comparing Russia with neighboring countries, we see that other former Soviet
Union countries grew even stronger.
So Putin's time is a time of lost opportunities.
Russia had and still has enormous oil, gas, and other energy resources, and prices are
very high.
Yes, part of this money remained in the country and led to the creation of the middle class,
which now tries to get rid of Putin because they understand that most of the money was
simply stolen by him and his friends.
MARGARET WARNER: So, what have you achieved with this so far, I mean, even if, as you
say, it's a foregone conclusion that Putin will win?
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): We see that Putin and Medvedev have already announced
some political reforms.
And we have realized that there is no huge gap between the political activists and the
public.
Thousands of people came out to the streets, and we found that in Russia there is this
critical mass of people that just will not allow Vladimir Putin to treat them as he has
for the last 12 years.
MARGARET WARNER: Prime Minister Putin and his party, the Kremlin, have all accused the
West of being behind protest movements, of being behind you, specifically, the U.S.,
the State Department, the CIA.
What do you say to that?
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): I'm quite an ordinary citizen who lives on the outskirts
of Moscow.
My children go to a regular Moscow school and kindergarten.
My life is completely transparent, which is absolutely not the case for Putin's officials,
whose children live abroad, who have accounts in Switzerland, the United States and Great
Britain.
So the question arises, who is more connected with the West, the opposition or Russian corrupt
ruling class?
MARGARET WARNER: So when Sunday happens, and if the results are as everyone expects, are
you prepared to accept them?
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): Since we do not recognize the election, we will
not recognize the election results.
We are quite clear that on March 5, Putin will declare himself the president of Russia.
In fact, he would call himself a czar and an emperor.
We will not accept this, and we will continue to demand political reforms, new parliamentary
elections within a year, and new presidential elections within two years.
MARGARET WARNER: So, does that mean returning to the street?
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): The Russian opposition groups have already stated that
they will encourage people to go to the streets on March 5 and beyond.
I do not know what the scale of the protest will be, but the fact that it will continue
is quite obvious.
It doesn't matter how they count the votes, because all candidates should have been able
to participate in the elections.
MARGARET WARNER: Are you saying the protest movement just stays out in the streets, or
do you have to form a political party yourself and get into the process?
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): We should build up our political protests to force him
to declare new elections.
Our goal is very simple, and it allows us to unite against this opponent.
We want very simple things: political reform and new elections.
Political reform means that all those who previously were not allowed to take part in
the elections must be approved.
MARGARET WARNER: If he were to listen to what you're saying and to what people in the street
are saying, how would you want him to govern differently in the next six years?
Is there a scenario in which he could actually lead reform?
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): I believe that such a scenario exists.
And I think that Putin, even though he's a very corrupted politician, a greedy politician
and a very power-hungry politician, he's a smart, flexible person.
And if he makes certain changes, we will be able to carry out that peaceful transition
of power, avoid any violence and guarantee freedom and security for Vladimir Putin.
He should take a risk and go for competitive elections.
MARGARET WARNER: You said something about guaranteeing his own safety.
Do you mean his safety from prosecution?
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): Yes, of course.
Now, we have a lot of evidence that Vladimir Putin and his team were personally involved
in criminal acts.
And, of course, he should be prosecuted.
In this regard, there is consensus in the opposition, for the sake of peaceful transfer
of power in the country, Vladimir Putin personally and his family should get some kind of freedom
guarantees.
MARGARET WARNER: Do you think that he could institute reforms and also weed out corruption
from within his system?
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): Unfortunately, this is impossible because corruption has
become the core on which he built his political power.
In his opinion, corruption is a very efficient way of management.
For him, there is no problem of his ministers being billionaires.
There is no problem in his governance being so corrupt that everybody in the country knows
about it.
MARGARET WARNER: Now, if he takes the other course, he wins 60 percent of the vote and
he decides to just clamp down and continue business as usual, then what?
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): One hundred thousand people in the streets of Moscow.
Of course, he can try to quell the protests by force.
But remember that this scenario, the so-called power scenario, was attempted on Dec. 5 last
year, when hundreds of people were arrested, including me, as well as on Dec. 6, when hundreds
of people were beaten.
But the result was that hundreds of thousands more people took to the streets.
MARGARET WARNER: And are you prepared to lead those protests as far as they need to go?
ALEXEI NAVALNY (through translator): Absolutely.
MARGARET WARNER: Alexei Navalny, thank you so much.
gdt1 gdt1 :pt1 urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags place urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags
City urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags country-region JUDY WOODRUFF: To Russia, where
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is running for president in this coming Sunday's election,
said his enemies were planning dirty tricks, including ballot stuffing and even murder,
in an attempt to mar the vote's outcome Normal Microsoft Office Word JUDY WOODRUFF: To Russia,
where Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is running for president in this coming Sunday's
election, said his enemies were planning dirty tricks, including ballot stuffing and even
murder, in an attempt to mar the vote's outcome Title Microsoft Office Word Document MSWordDoc
Word.Document.8