Shuster: Is Russia experiencing an economic boom?

Chubais: There is no economic boom but there could well be if voters make the right choice on 7 December.

Glazyev: The only economic boom is being enjoyed by oligarchs, monopolists and organized criminals thanks to the unfair distribution of income. How can there be an economic boom if people are not even being paid?

Yavlinsky: There has been quantitative growth but Russia is undergoing "growth without development" where economic improvements fail to impact on social welfare.

Zhirinovsky: You're all wrong even to stress the economy. What Russia needs is to put the state, the army and security first, forgetting democrats and reformers. Then when fear has replaced any external threat, the focus can be the economy led by the state. [The city] Oryol is in the "Red Belt" (Ed. Group of regions stably voting for communists) and will never have an economic boom.

Shuster: Who should control the natural resources?

Chubais: The state should control the managers of natural resources who should, of course, be private businessmen.

Glazyev: The state owns the property and should manage it too, to make sure that earnings remain in Russia.

Yavlinsky: The law must decide.

Zhirinovsky: The state should run the entire economy on behalf of all its citizens, although the service sector might be privately run, as long as it works for more than just a moneyed elite.

Individual presentations

Chubais is first up and Shuster asks him to address the issue of whether the state can be both an effective owner and a manager at one and the same time. Chubais replies by recalling that when people go shopping, the private sector provides most of what they buy. The state's role is to provide strategic direction and evaluate economic achievements. He points out that Russia is the CIS leader for virtually all economic indices - wages, pensions, consumer goods ownership. When Shuster notes that the audience seems unconvinced, he says that there are supporters of other parties in the audience too. He says it is wrong to have redistribution of property back on the political agenda since it means taking things away from the producer. It would be better to turn this particular historical page. Only when private property is regarded as sacred and inviolable can there be a real economic boom.

Asked by Zhirinovsky what he feared in 1991 when he defended then president, Boris Yeltsin, Chubais said he fought to prevent a return to Communism. He refutes Zhirinovsky's claim that only the mafia have benefited from privatization while the people are destitute, saying that everyone's real income has risen 28 per cent and there are the beginnings of a middle class. Everyone in the Duma should concentrate on what unites them to raise incomes still further, he says. Asked by Sergei Ivanenko from YABLOKO about the significance of income growth, given that incomes plummeted in 1998, Chubais says his figure goes back to 1991. He also denies being against the state. After all, he says, he and his colleagues built the state, creating the laws and the constitution of the new Russia. To Shuster's expressed surprise, Dmitri Rogozin of the Motherland bloc offers his thanks to Chubais for Russia's "happy childhood" in the immediate post-Soviet years, earning the audience's applause.

A businessman sets the question for the next speaker, Sergei Glazyev, by challenging the received wisdom that Russia is overly dependent on raw materials. Glazyev disagrees and says that what is now required is to end the "robber economy", to get rid of the oligarchs, the politicians who work for them and corrupt civil servants and to restore the earnings from natural resources to Russia. He laments the lack of connection between labour and pay and suggests that there is still no real private sector that is able to earn for itself rather than cream off the profits from natural resources that effectively belong to other people. He goes on to outline Motherland's programme, saying that their aim is to distribute revenue fairly as the only real condition for economic growth. This would see wages go up. He envisages the money coming from what he calls natural rent which appears to be payment for the right to manage natural resources. This would go to pay benefits and public-sector wages. Chubais is skeptical about the capacity of the raw materials sector to provide anything like the sums Glazyev imagines without causing complete destruction.

The same businessman, identified as Aras Agalarov, then effectively provides an introduction for Grigory Yavlinsky by asking what needs to be done to extricate Russia from its current crisis. Yavlinsky says that "growth without development" i.e. without any impact on living standards, is merely an abstract concept. Russia needs qualitative growth but this will require structural change that can only come about if vast numbers of laws are adopted, bringing about administrative reform, reform of the natural monopolies, financial, banking and tax reform and much more. He notes that it is wrong to compare Russia with other former Soviet states and a much less rosy picture would be painted if the comparison were made with Western or even Eastern Europe. Yavlinsky says Russia's people need a "strong state that serves its citizens" rather than the state based on "bandit capitalism" they have at present with no independent judiciary or legislature and no free media. He declines to take a question from Vladimir Zhirinovsky, describing him as someone "outside politics" with whom YABLOKO no longer wishes to speak after comments Zhirinovsky made on Russia TV to the effect that he was pleased that General Georgy Shpak's son had died in Chechnya.

Asked by an economist if a property amnesty might be possible, whereby ownership acquired by a certain date would stand unchallenged, Yavlinsky replied that again this would entail new legislation to ensure, for example, the transparency of political lobbying and party funding and public TV subordinate neither to the state nor to the oligarchs. The aim, he said, would be to restrict the oligarchs' involvement in politics. Yavlinsky ended by saying that the state should not have the defining say in the economy.

A rather scruffy-looking Vladimir Zhirinovsky is the last of the invited speakers to take the floor and does so with his usual vigour, denouncing his fellow speakers' past and particularly their foreign connections and the "political prostitution" that sees former members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union espousing such different positions now. He appeals to the disadvantaged by talking up the poverty gap, pointing out the difference between the many Russians living in poverty or disease only to face an early death and the wealthy few in their mansions, with their new cars. He also speaks to the chauvinists of Russia, denouncing the comfort of foreigners while Russians are destitute and suggesting that whole parts of the country will end up speaking foreign languages given the current influx of foreigners in, for example, the Far East. He constantly returns to Georgi Shpak's son, saying the general is a traitor to now side with the people who allowed the war in Chechnya and are therefore complicit in his son's death. He ends by calling for an authoritarian regime, a strong army and the KGB to defend Russians in their own country where everyone else is doing very well, thank you. Laughter and applause greet some of his remarks, although Shuster and others try to call him to order when he repeatedly tackles Shpak, who is in the audience as part of the Motherland delegation. Nikolay Leonov of the Motherland bloc challenges Zhirinovsky stance as the champion of the Russians, saying his support for government projects has done much to harm the Russian people. The debate then degenerates into a shouting contest with Zhirinovsky hurling insults in all directions even to the extent of going slightly over his time limit, which Shuster reminds him, is illegal.

Mopping up, appeals for votes

While Zhirinovsky is out of time, the other speakers have still some to spare. Yavlinsky sums up by saying fascism is developing in Russia and is a great threat. It is, he says, always linked to corruption. He points to a newly-adopted law to cut timber in national parks and a party colleague reads out those who supported it. Yavlinsky then says that YABLOKO is prepared to join any other forces to oppose the advance of fascism. Glazyev ends by saying that all the others present despite their apparent differences vote the same way, for those who pay the most whereas the people's patriotic forces (of which Motherland is part) vote as they promised the electorate.

Chubais for his part sums up by saying that the debate might have revealed some unpleasantness, there were also lessons that could be learned from the debate. He repeats Yavlinsky's call for unity among all right-thinking people. He ends by asking voters to at least turn out, whoever they then vote for. A defence industry spokesman, Anatoly Dolgolaptev, of the Motherland bloc is invited by Glazyev to speak and laments the fact that the debate went so far off the topic.

Phone-in vote

Motherland - 38.6 per cent

Union of Right Forces - 32.6 per cent

YABLOKO - 15.8 per cent

LDPR - 13.1 per cent

(Based on BBC monitoring)

See also:

State Duma elections 2003

NTV channel, "Freedom of Speech" programme, November 21, 2003