Russia’s ‘Fake’ Election
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 8 March 2018
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ksenia Sobchak is young, wealthy and famous. Her father helped bring down the Soviet Union. Now she’s challenging ex-KGB officer Vladimir Putin for the Russian presidency. A perfect pedigree? Perhaps. But some say she’s a fake candidate, running a no-hope race to boost the Kremlin’s democratic credentials. Gabriel Gatehouse travels to Russia to unravel a tale of family loyalties, a death in suspicious circumstances, and double dealings in the quest for power.
Producer: Mike Gallagher
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to assignment on the BBC World Service. We're in a theatre in Central Moscow. |
| 0:14.0 | It's a kind of a variety show on stage performing in top-toot poems. |
| 0:21.0 | On stage has just appeared a woman in a bright red dress. |
| 0:27.0 | It's Czanya San Chuck and it's clear that she is the main act here. |
| 0:32.0 | Tonight. She is the main act here tonight. |
| 0:35.0 | The woman in the red dress isn't one of the performers, |
| 0:39.0 | but the journey she's embarking on does involve artifice, spectacle and the suspension of disbelief. |
| 0:45.3 | Kseña Subchak is running for president in this month's election. Well, sort of. We can't choose our gender, we can't choose our parents, and we can't choose our parents, |
| 1:00.0 | and we can't choose the president of Russia. |
| 1:03.0 | We all know how this election will end, |
| 1:06.0 | but that doesn't mean we shouldn't act. |
| 1:09.0 | That's why I decided to run in this sort of election. |
| 1:13.0 | It's a fake election. |
| 1:15.0 | It's a fake election. |
| 1:20.0 | It's a fake election. |
| 1:22.0 | Yes, I'm always telling you guys. It's a fake election. It's a fake election. |
| 1:23.0 | Yes, I'm always telling us. |
| 1:25.0 | Young, glamorous and rich. |
| 1:27.0 | Subchak is a reality TV star turned opposition journalist. |
| 1:31.0 | Like in a casino where the win is always on the house. |
| 1:35.8 | In Russian elections the win is always on Putin's side. |
| 1:39.4 | So I'm taking part in the elections not to win. |
... |
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