Hello, my friends. This is the weekly program presented by me – Konstantin Kosachyov - a member of the Russian Parliament and the former leader of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. And I started my program with this fact from my biography for the simple reason that our special invited guest today is the representative of this Assembly – Mr. Tiny Kox who is the member of the Dutch Parliament, the upper chamber – the Senate and the leader of the United Left political group, one of five political groups in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

He has been invited to this program in two capacities. The first capacity – Mr. Kox is now the leader of the pre-electoral mission to observe Russian presidential elections on the 4th of March and as far as I understand he will be the head of the whole delegation when he arrives back here to Moscow a little bit later, a couple of days before the elections. And the second capacity is the previous observation mission from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to Russia during the parliamentary elections in December last year which also was led by Mr. Kox and later he was the reporter on these elections to the Assembly – in the first session in January, one month ago.

According to the existing legislation in Russia during a certain observation mission before the elections are over the international observers are somehow limited in their public comments and I will not ask Mr. Kox to violate Russian legislation but I believe that you are much more free about making comments about our previous parliamentary elections as they are over and that would be probably my first question to you.

Could you come back to December? How interesting that observation mission was for you personally? How many surprises did you find during this mission? And were you anyhow surprised to see the further developments, I mean the demonstrations in Moscow and other cities of Russia? Were you surprised by this reaction of Russians on the parliamentary elections?

It’s a pleasure to be in your program. To come back to one of your first questions that you asked me – how did I feel personally to be here – it’s not only an honour to be invited by your Parliament to observe your parliamentary elections and later on the presidential elections but it’s also great fun to do it – to be able to come this great country, to guide this country on votes and then to see how people – voters, citizens, organizations, parties, politicians are dealing with elections because especially in this country elections are rather new at the form that every vote should be counted and the result is not predictable until the last vote is counted and registered. So, that is indeed great and it also gave me the chance to see something more of your beautiful capital - all these buildings, small cafes and restaurants… so, I tried to do necessary things and to accompany them with the pleasant sort of things. So, that is good.

Coming back to the elections as such we made the report and it was dealt with in our Parliamentary Assembly of which I was the member for quite a long time. We made up our report and it was a very critical report, to be honest, we concluded that Russia is very much capable of organizing good elections. You are a modern country in this regard and electronic voting system is the symbol of that. But being able to have good elections does not always mean that you have good elections and we saw a lot of things that were according to us not in accordance with your own protocols and that is what we reported because we are asked to observe – that means that we have to not to close our eyes but to open them and also ears and use our mouth, then come to a conclusion after the elections, not before because too many people had that judgment before the elections, and then after the elections we comment and we advise.

That is what we did and the very pleasant thing is that the day after the elections though my comments were not accepted by everybody but now, two months later the new Speaker of the Russian Parliament Mr. Narishkin, he thanked me for my critical remarks because, as he said, that Russia needs these kinds of remarks because the goals would be not to stay where you are but to see how you can improve. And it was interesting to see that not only political parties and politicians but also the citizens of Russia chose their own way to make clear and say – if we vote, we want that every vote is counted and counted in a proper way and the beginning of this mistrust says that something is wrong and something should be changed.

And now I see the mood of change in your country. I didn’t meet anybody who said – everything is fine here, the next elections will be as the previous. No, there is a big mood of change, there are a lot of proposals made by your President to the Parliament, proposals of political factions, proposals of NGOs, so everybody are thinking how to improve. The interesting thing is that not all the proposals are the same. And there is not only a lot of proposals but also a lot of serious dispute. And that’s good, democracy is not for softies, as I would say. It is very good that there are opposite positions, opposite answers but things are moving and that is great to be in Russia where things are changing.

You know, one very interesting reaction on these proposals made by our President to the Parliament to make a political reform, one interesting discussion is about the number of people needed to register a political party. The previous regulation was too hard and it was difficult to find that number of people to register a political party and everybody demanded that this regulation should be softened and that was one of the recommendations we received from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for several times as well.

Now, the President made a proposal to set this limit of the level of 500 people and the previous was 50 000 or 40 000, I do not remember exactly. So, it is a very dramatic change. Suddenly I see that this proposal is more or less supported by the United Russia Party as far as I can see but the oppositional parties are against this. They said immediately – look, it’s not possible, there will be too many new political parties, it is now too easy to register and we don’t like to have this regulation, please make the level higher. So, some changes, you know, proposed by the President seem to be too radical in the eyes of the opposition.

That is interesting Konstantin, and that also shows that the comments and the advices of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe are not there for the ruling party or for the ruling Prime Minister but they are there for your Parliament including the opposition. And indeed if we say that your rules on party registration are too far reached, they exclude too much and they should include more, then these advices are for everybody. But of course we realize that if we ask for more competitors and more competition – that also means that those who are not governing now will have more competition, so they will also have to deliver better, in my opinion, because if there is more competition then voters can decide – not, let’s switch to this party, let’s switch to that party.

So, we do not make our recommendations so that everybody says great. No, it’s good that it results in a discussion in your Parliament. And I think that it is good that your President made up the proposal to include more possible parties in the next elections and therefore in your Parliament. And at the same time it is totally acceptable that any Parliament makes limitations because if every Russian starts a political party…

It will not be a functioning democracy.

So, you have to have regulations but, at least in my opinion, you should do it in a way that you think is fair – the free competition of ideas because that is what democracy is about.

I worked in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for eight years and during these years when I came to Strasburg I would almost always be forced to fight for Russia, to protect Russia, to ask for a more fair approach towards my country which is natural of course, but now I may confess that when I would come back to Moscow I would always try to protect our Assembly and to ask for a more fair approach to it because I believe that even in case of criticism from Strasburg about Russia, it does not mean that this Assembly is anti-Russian.

In most cases it is pro-Russian, it tries to assist, it tries to give good advices and good recommendations in order to make Russian democracy as functional as it is in your country or in many others. And I would like to thank you Mr. Kox for your report because it was a fair one and I’ve asked my colleagues in different political parties and different Chambers of the Russian Parliament and in the Government to study carefully these recommendations supported by the majority in the Assembly and hopefully your coming report on our presidential elections will be also fair, professional and will be supported not just by other national delegations in the Assembly but the Russian delegation as well because this is a really important development we face now in Russia.

I totally agree with you, although we have to be honest on this – politicians, you know and I know, are certainly no sense, I think that would be too difficult for us. So, there are members in our Parliamentary Assembly to whom Russia can do no good whatever it does, whether it is being under this or that Government, it can do no good. That is a pity but people are free to express their opinion. But the good news are, and I agree with you on that, that the Assembly as such is not anti-Russian, should not be anti-Russian and has no title to be anti-Russian because Russia is one of the 47 members, it is the biggest member state, it is also one of the grand pier as we say in French, so Russian also makes it possible that there is no reason to be anti-Russian but that does not mean that the Assembly should not criticize developments in Russia and in San Marino, and in my country – the Netherlands, and in the United Kingdom if there is there is the reason to because we have united our forces in this Council of Europe and in this 47 member states treaty in which we agreed that we have to stick to the same standards.

So, if any country, any parliament, any government does not obey these standards it should be criticized, that is not negative, that is positive because we all should help because in our countries it is sometimes difficult to do what we promise and that is not only in Russia, in my country it is the same and therefore I think that Russian citizens, Russian politicians should have trust in the Parliamentary Assembly and the Parliamentary Assembly should have trust in your great country and its institutions and if there is a need to criticize one each other we should do it openly, frankly and we should not be afraid as again the democracy is not for softies but it should be fair.

Mr. Kox, how do you feel yourself in terms of the conditions provided to your pre-electoral mission, to your group here in Russia? How does your communication with the Central Electoral Committee going on? Do you see any problems or obstacles for your activities here? Are you limited somehow or are you free to observe whatever you wish?

You may remember Konstantin, that in November we had some problems with the Head of the Central Electoral Commission Mr. Churov, who thought that we were violating Russian international rules. We ended that dispute, we came to the conclusion that we are doing what we should do on the half of our Assembly and when I met him this week – I said it’s interesting, Mr. Churov, to see that in the beginning it was like we had difficulties to meet each other and now we have difficulties to meet each other because we had so much to tell, and we had so many things to question.

Of course there is still a dispute, it is also mentioned in my report that there is a problem in your country with the electoral administration, functioning of electoral bodies. There is the lack of trust, I would say, by many people, parties but also NGOs. And whether it is true or not, you cannot have it because every voter wants to know for sure that whatever party or whatever candidate he votes for, that vote is counted. And if there is mistrust in those who are there to be the referee, to count the votes, then that is a very important signal and of course Mr. Churov is convinced that he is doing his best and I think that many of your election commissions are also thinking that way but if you se this lack of trust, that is a fact and you have to react on it and it’s not enough to say – do trust we, we do aware good enough - you have to answer the questions of the public and that is again at stake, and is entirely up to your bodies to deal with it.

It’s not that we want this to change, it is your citizens who say – we want free and fair elections – and free and fair elections mean not just we want this candidate or that candidate to be elected, no. That is the solemn right of the voters and the structure should take care that every vote is counted and should be above any mistrust. And that is a huge task I think for your institution to develop on that.

And there are a lot of proposals made by your President, by you Parliament, made by NGOs, made by Mr. Churov. Some of them are already applied now – the web-cams, the transparent ballot boxes. Most of them would be applicable after the election and that is understandable, you cannot change the laws overnight. But what can be changed now is the culture. If everybody indeed puts their money where their mouth is, if everybody now say – ok, what happened, did happen but we will have free and fair presidential elections. If that signal would be true out of the country, that would be an enormous improvement in the culture of voting and that would be I think the wish of your citizens. And that is easy to be done because if you count every vote and if you obey the protocol – you’ll have a fair result.

So, that is, as I said in my concluding press statement, is very much possible in your country and that’s great. Things are moving but nothing is yet sure and it is up to everybody who are involved in the electoral process to show now that the wish to have free and fair elections is not only a wish but at the 4th of March is a reality. I heard you President say – we need these changes. I head you Prime Minister – the candidate for the presidency, to say together with the others – I want to be elected only in free and fair elections. All the candidates that I met this week, they all say the same. So, if you all say the same – what’s the problem one could say?

So, do deliver what you suggest and you indeed will do the citizens of Russia a tremendous pleasure because that is the way how to restore trust if we have seen so many people demonstrating not only on the streets but also on the Internet, they do not ask much in my opinion, they just say – if we are a modern country, if we have democracy, then just count every vote in the same way. That is possible and I’m very, very much interested, it is an adventure what will happen in the upcoming weeks.

And now I’m humble enough to say – I don’t know what is going to happen in your country. And I met a lot of various people who already now tell me what is exactly going to happen on the 4th of March. Perhaps they are wise and I’m stupid but I think a lot of your citizens and lots of your politicians are very much interested in what is going to happen and that’s good because it’s vibrant democracy.

Yes, I do agree with you and I believe that this ambition to have free and fair elections is now being definitely shared by every participant – the ruling authorities, the opposition. Some political parties, some political forces which are not the participants, which have not been registered, are of different opinion and they criticize the existing procedures, the ongoing campaign absolutely negatively whatsoever happens.

And you know, it is also a very interesting story. I believe you met one of the unregistered candidates – Mr. Yavlinsky, I was a little bit shocked to see the reaction of the European Union Madam Catherine Ashton in particular, when after the decision of the Central Electoral Committee to reject the registration of Mr. Yavlinsky, she demanded from the Russian authorities to register him. I do not like this type of comments. I would have accepted the reaction like – look, it’s important for Russia to check all your procedures to be sure that the decision was legitimate, please double check it, please come back to this and try. But the reaction was a different one – look, you have to register this candidate, that’s it. And you know, it’s not legal any longer because in case if the certain procedures have been violated, then we do not have any possibility to register any candidate.

I think we have to make a distinction in this. First I have to say Madam Ashton is not of the Council of Europe, she represents European Union, she is the master of her words but one could question whether it was wise to give this reaction. It’s a bit too hard. But there are two things at stake – one are the rules – and at that the signatures of Mr. Yavlinsky had to meet the criteria. It was said by the Central Electoral Committee – no, and the Supreme Court said the Central Electoral Committee is entitled to come to this conclusion. I’m not sure that the Supreme Court counted again all these things but it’s your Supreme Court that took that decision and that is one. Mr. Prohorov’s signatures were also checked so it shows that it is possible, although Mr. Prohorov said it is almost insane - 2million signatures in such a short time, but…

And this procedure is to be changed during the next elections as well.

So, the one thing is to stick to the rules. I think it would have been wiser that everybody says to your country – change this rigid rule. It is ridiculous, it does not help anybody. As Mr. Prohorov said – this is insulting and humiliating. So, do that ad the rest should be as broad as possible to look to the signatures but it is better to support the changes of the rules because that will mean something structurally, than to say you should not apply your rules because if you do not apply these rules someone else will say why are you applying that? So, I think the reaction of the Council of Europe was not in that way although I met a lot of people this week who were really pity for Mr. Yavlinsky who is a well known, outstanding politician in your country and is not able to compete with his ideas…

I know these people personally and I would prefer to have as many candidates registered as possible but according to the existing rules. If the rules are bad, yes, they need to be changed, but as long as they exist - everybody have to obey them.

And I think that the line of the Council of Europe has always been critical, we said – you should change - it and now you have changed it, that’s good but it’s a damn pity to say that on that way it took you so much time because that limits the choice of people in the next presidential elections and they do not deserve that, and also the candidates do not deserve that, and your country a well. But that is something else than to say – do not stick to you rules. And if I understood Madam Ashton well, that part of her remarks was not wise in my opinion, it did not help anybody.

Tell me Mr. Kox, you were here for three or four days and I believe it is not enough to check all the aspects of pour election campaign. We also have another observation mission ODIHR – OSCE watchdog in terms of elections and they have long standing service here observing everything in different regions of Russia. And you in contact with ODIHR observers and how much are you dependant on their observations?

We are very much dependant on them and that is good because it is a long term observation, I agree with you, being here for a few days does not entitle you to come up with comments if you are not backed by facts and figures. And ODIHR is taking care for this. I’m in a very good contact with Ambassador Tagliavini of the OSCE ODIHR as I was in the parliamentary elections. We met this week and we agreed we should take care that we do our best. But the most important, Konstantin, is that now there are so many more in my opinion qualified internal observers because these people are the ones who really can help…

You mean Russian candidates representing political parties and NGOs.

Yes, there are tens of thousands of these people who are now, as far as I am informed, motivated to be there because being an observer is one thing and being a good observer is another and I think you now have far more people who are motivated to take care, to see on the half of the other citizens that every vote is counted in a proper way. So, that will be the main change in my opinion that all these observers will help Russia to vote in a better way than in the past and it is pour task, obligation and honour to assist that internal observation.

Unfortunately our time is over. Thank you so much, Mr. Kox, for taking your time and coming to the Voice of Russia, for taking your time and coming to Moscow this time and taking responsibility in agreeing to accept this position to lead the observation mission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and welcome back to our presidential elections on the 4th or March. And I hope this time you will be able to draft a report with more positive comments on our elections, this is our common ambition here in Russia.

Let’s wait and see, it is up to you.

It is definitely up to us. Thank you very much Mr. Kox.