The Field Must be Level: What are the Measures Given to Presidential Candidates to Give a Fair Chance?
Election campaign news. Today, a lottery was drawn in the Central Election Commission for the placement of candidates' campaign materials in print media. 15 papers provided their pages to the candidates for the highest government post. And the candidates themselves personally spoke with voters.
Alexey Petrov will tell us about yet another pre-election day.
The Bolshevichka factory is lively: Pavel Grudinin from the Communist Party came to introduce his program. Among sewing machines and equipment there's a real crowd. No mercy for the cameramen. The Presidential candidate chastises the press.
Pavel Grudinin: Journalists think that they're the most important. Sir, please leave. They behave as if they're in charge here, but you are the ones who are in charge. It's people who everyday go to work, who every day think how they'll feed their children, and here journalists are the most important!
- We're the owners here, and not the guests.
Pavel Grudinin: That's right, that's why they need to be kicked out. Can we ask the journalists to leave?
TV channel Mir can barely film anything at all in these conditions.
Grudinin proposes to kick out the press, and at the same time complains about how they are covering his election campaign. According to the Central Election Commission, the Communist Party candidate sent 26 complaints to the commission about journalists. The left candidate talks with the workers of Bolshevichka about how to increase production. With particular emphasis is on the prospects of light industry.
Pavel Grudinin: "What prevents us from developing, it's not profitable to produce products in Russia. We are strangled by taxes, we are strangled with tariffs. You know who controls the tariff agencies? We are strangled with all sorts of administrative letters that say can't do this, can't do that, and then a person comes in and says, "You can, only give me money." And all this is corruption. I wore your suits for a long time. And then because of these taxes, tariffs, payments, your suits became more expensive than these suits."
Vladimir Zhirinovsky didn't just talk about the army and weapons today, he took up arms himself. And what choice! Here's the legendary Maxim machine gun, the pride of the shooting club to which the Presidential candidate came. This gun is from 1943, Zhirinovsky was told, although the model itself appeared at the end of the 19th century.
Mosin's rifle is another rarity. Zhirinovsky again took aim and shot several times. Then they started on the history of Russian arms.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky: Self-loading Tokarev rifle and the TT pistol is also his?
- This is a semi-automatic rifle.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky: So semi-automatic.
Next, a meeting with Afghanistan veterans. Today is 29 years since the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Talking with Afghan veterans over a cup of tea, and what kind of help is needed from the government, and about the current state of the Russian army.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky: "Today we see good progress in the army, we see that we have new weapons, and we see its application. In the Middle East, very high-precision weapons, and diverse. And ships and the underwater, and artillery, we have all this, and when some Presidential candidates say "We need to leave Syria" they don't understand that everything will be here then. So we're defending the interests of our country in foreign areas".
Sergei Baburin spoke about the war in Afghanistan and those who went through it. The Russian People's Union candidate came to Poklonnaya Gora to lay flowers at the monument of Soldiers-Internationalists.
Sergei Baburin: "We need to do everything to ensure that today, wherever the Afghanistan veterans and Russian citizens live, we would make a normal life for them, a prosperous pension, a well-organized healthcare, because people who defend abroad in military conflicts the interests of the country and the people deserve it."
The trip of Ksenia Sobchak to Orel was dedicated to the City's municipal problems. There's a crack in the wall of one of the high-rise buildings. The building is falling apart for a long time, tenants complain. However, local authorities believe that the building is usable, and insist on conducting additional inspections.
- It wasn't clear how the inspection was done, it happened in my apartment. I didn't understand what they were doing, I thought it was another sightseeing trip in my home.
Ksenia Sobchak: The house was recognized as in an emergency state as of now.
- They recommended a reconstruction, not demolishing it, but a reconstruction!
Sobchak inspected the building and some apartments and then went with them to the city administration. And she demanded to solve the problem as quickly as possible.
Ksenia Sobchak: "The house was recognized as in an emergency condition, but there was a strange final inspection. There was a strange postscript, that the tenants shouldn't be resettled, as the tenants want, but that the house needs a reconstruction, and, cynically, on top of that, at the tenants' expense! Will you take any responsibility for the condition of this building?"
Today, Boris Titov discussed at a roundtable what Russia's pension system should be like. According to Titov, it's necessary to provide social guarantees for temporary employees. But at the same time, all the benefits and payments shouldn't kill the business, reducing profits to 0.
Boris Titov: "Huge social insurance payments lead to companies not being able to pay them. That if you pay everything, then you can't have a profitable business. You'll go bankrupt. As a result, businesses and individual entrepreneurs go into the shadows. They work without paying taxes. And what does this mean? A reduction in income, and the budget, and the Pension Fund. And we're living in this circle the last few years."
Alexander Rumyantsev, co-chairman of the electoral headquarters of Vladimir Putin, is in the city of Ivanovo today. He's hearing voters' personal issues, behind which lie problems of the whole region. One of the appeals: a child has a serious disease, local doctors say that you need complex tests, which cost a lot of money.
Alexander Rumyantsev: "It's not viable to run this test, so they made it a paid service. Give me your contact information, I will call you, and will provide you with the best specialist in this region".
But it's not just about medicine. Rumyantsev is being asked to help with a church restoration, natural gas supply, and cases of no transport from remote village. Even the minibus stopped running.
Alexander Rumyantsev: And how often did the minibus ran?
- The minibus ran frequently, about every 6-10 minutes approximately, but in general, 6,5-7 minutes.
- And it was full of people? It was economically important…
- Yes
- I think we can solve this issue with the Gubernator.
- I already wrote them.
- Did you receive an answer?
- It's being examined.
- Ok, we'll expedite the examination.
The Communists of Russia candidate, Maxim Suraykin is sure that many of the current problems could be solved using Soviet experience. A program of actions has been formed: a short-term program for the next 100 days, and a more detailed one for the next 5 years.
Maxim Suraykin: "In the first 100 days, we will form a large working group to draft a Soviet constitution from representatives of patriotic, socialist, and communist movements. It will be formed based on Constitutions of 1936 and 1977. We believe that the norm that now exists on the prohibition of state ideology should be definitely abolished. The government should have an ideology! A Soviet one".
Grigory Yavlinsky went to St. Petersburg today, where he met with cultural figures, answered questions from voters and talked about his program.
Grigory Yavlinsky, presidential candidate, Yabloko party: "My main goal is to solve the problem of creating a modern economy in Russia. But this subject immediately comes to very important, other elements of our life. For example, it's impossible to create a modern economy in Russia unless we prioritize the problem of poverty. This is the first economic priority".
Meanwhile, the beginning of advertising is getting closer. Today Central Election Commission is distributing the print press advertising space. The papers will provide it for free. The publications are all Russian, but many are printed not in Moscow, but in other regions. The most important principle: the field must be level, and, therefore: the same position in the paper, and the same font size.
15 papers on whose pages it will be possible to advertise. Never so many before, stresses Central Electoral Commission, a record. So every candidate has a chance to clarify their position and convince voters.
Alexey Petrov, Maxim Shipilov, Andrej Ganikin, Viktor Kazakov, Anna Tsimaila, and Andrej Melnikov. Vesti.