Transcript of Putin's Press Conference

[Moderator] Another question, please. Der Spiegel in row ten.
 

Reform of the political system

[Question] Vladimir Vladimirovich, in the course of this press conference you have mentioned several times that the your main objective is improving the political system. Can you define what role is played in this system by what is known as political technology, something which has become a very prominent subject of discussion since you were elected? What does this mean for you, this political technology? Is it some kind of imitation of tumultuous political life, or some kind of instrument to assist policy, or is it something altogether different? Thank you.

[Putin] You know, political technology and improving the political structure of society are quite different things, in my view. Political reform, reform of political life is above all the creation of a multiparty - of a genuinely functioning multiparty system. Whilst political technology is just a means of attaining certain political goals, an instrument for attaining political goals. In the course of reforming politics, it is possible to formulate a task which can be explained easily in a few words in the following way - and this is something I have also spoken about here. What I would like to see is people choosing in the final analysis not among particular personalities but rather among ideas, proposals, party programmes. For this we need functioning parties, parties to be created which influence the country's political life. We need it to be those parties which define the country's political life, the political landscape of the state. That is what I see as the goal in transforming politics. Political technology is merely an instrument for the attainment of tactical aims by political forces of one kind or another. Moreover, these instruments may be of a civilized kind or of a quite different kind.

You know very well that these political technologies did not originate in the Russian Federation, so you should address your questions there.

[Moderator] Esteemed colleagues, allow me to put the final question to one of the state's mass media, ITAR-TASS.